


Exsanguination: A Love Story

by inkystars



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Horror, M/M, Mystery, Romance, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-22 13:02:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 27,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/610120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkystars/pseuds/inkystars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wintery mists of Provincetown, a grieving boy who wants to die and an undead boy who doesn't know how to live help each other to find out the meaning of being alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Prologue: Nine years ago…

***

Eight-year-old Kurt wandered through the tall thin trees, trying to find his way back to grandma’s house so that he wouldn’t be late for supper but he was lost and the snow was starting to fall again and he was growing cold. He wrapped his scarf more warmly around himself and trudged on, confident that he’d somehow just end up back at the house.

The woods were quiet. No birds were chirping though Kurt supposed that they’d all just flown south for the winter. But no squirrels or small animals were making noise either which Kurt found weird because they had been earlier.

The trees started to thin out and he found himself in a clearing. Frowning, because he hadn’t come this way, he looked around. He could see something over the tops of the trees to his left—a building?—and the clearing was completely empty except…

Kurt walked forward, towards the old well. 

It was big, going up to his chest, and old. It was covered with a thick wood top that had sturdy metal latches but the rest was made with large dark gray stones. Kurt leaned forward curiously, putting his mittened hands on the stones and feeling their frigidness through the wool. 

He put too much weight on one of the smaller stones—one that was slightly smaller than his palm—and it slid out of place, falling into the well. Kurt blinked in surprise, waiting…not quite sure what he was waiting for until, nearly a half minute later, he finally heard the splash.

An odd chill filled Kurt and he took his hands off the well.

In the space that had been emptied by him accidentally pushing the rock in, an eye stared back at him.

Kurt stumbled backwards, a scream creeping into his throat as he took off through the snow, heading in a different direction than he’d come, tearing through the woods, the only thought in his mind  _run run run run run—!_

He stumbled through a thorny bush and out of the trees. He was on the beach, the only thing around was an old lighthouse. The sun sank down into the ocean and darkness flooded the area. He ran over to it, not wanting to look behind him in case whatever that thing was in the well was chasing him. He tried pulling open the door, but it was locked. Wiping the tears from his eyes, he reached up on his tippy toes until he could grasp the latch and he pulled it down hard, wrenching the door open.

Blackness greeted him in the doorway. Kurt hesitated briefly before taking a step towards it. 

Something unmistakably alive breathed out from the darkness, rather loudly, and Kurt froze, eyes widening.

Seconds later he was on his back, winded and something dark crouched over him, pressing down on his chest and making it difficult to breathe. Gold eyes flashed and Kurt saw a fang and heard a growl and everything was starting to get a bit fuzzy and his head hurt…

Then the pressure was off of him and Kurt laid their in the snow, his head pounding and feeling sticky and then he remembered no more.

***

Present day…

***

Seventeen-year-old Kurt stood in front of his grandmother’s house, suitcase in one hand, shoulder bag in the opposite. The clear gray sky was high above, no threat of fog or rain. A clean and pristine blanket of snow surrounded the impressive three-story home, its pale greenish-blonde wood gleaming against the sparkling snow. 

Kurt breathed out slowly, his breath hanging in the air briefly before dispersing. He walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell once. 

Edmund, his grandmother’s butler, answered the door, nodding to Kurt. “Mr. Hummel. Mrs. Blanc is currently indisposed at the moment, but she said that she’d have you for dinner.”

Kurt nodded once, stepping over the threshold to his new home.

“All documents and schedules are in your usual room,” Edmund continued. “You’ll start school tomorrow at St. Andrew’s, further in town.”

Kurt walked up the stairs in the incredibly empty house, paying no more attention to Edmund. 

His room was on the second floor. It was the same one he’d stayed in when he was younger and they’d actually visit grandmother back when his own mother was alive. Except now the bed was larger and the room looked practically stripped. He set his bags down and sat on the gray comforter, glancing around at his white walls, then out his window at the white landscape, dotted with thin black trees. 

Names on gravestones flashed briefly before his eyes and he blinked away the memory of his parents resting next to each other in the ground. He’d done enough crying in the past month, and his grandmother had always hated the sound. 

Instead, he stood and walked over to his window and watched the soft gentle flakes that steadily began to fall from the sky.

He felt dead inside. 


	2. Chapter 2

Dinner was achingly formal yet still too personal for Kurt’s current tastes. 

He and his grandmother were sat at opposite ends of the dining table that could easily seat sixteen. The meal consisted of a sort of spinach salad with pears and currants and an odd crispy creamy cheese along with a small bowl of cubed grapefruit and a glass of Perrier. For grandmother’s health, which was failing due to her old age. 

“This is the proper diet for someone in poor health,” she said evenly from her end and Kurt knew the double barb. She’d never approved of his father marrying her daughter and now the only one alive to hear about it was Kurt. Who she could also berate for his own father’s bad health, as if she truly cared.

Her voice lilted softly in the background and Kurt drowned it out, methodically eating bite after bite of salad. His stomach gnawed in hunger but he didn’t care. He excused himself after he’d finished his meal and went back up to his room.

No pictures adorned his wall. No posters or paraphernalia. No personalizations of any kind. The only addition he’d made was a picture of him and his parents at a park when he was four, which resided on his bedside table. He stripped out of his black oxford and slacks and put his pajamas on, turning off the lamp as he climbed into bed at eight pm and watched the snow quietly fall outside. 

Darkness.

***

School kids in Massachusetts weren’t terribly different from the ones in Ohio, except with the addition of social classes. He’d thought they were a thing of a bygone era, but apparently they were well and alive in New England, evident by the whispers he received in the halls from the other boys. According to hearsay, his mother had caused quite the stir in Provincetown when she’d run off with a midwestern mechanic. 

The uniform sucked as well, but it was to be expected in an all-boys school.

But…Kurt somehow imagined that the way he was treated would be different from Lima…

“Hummel!”

Kurt groaned against his locker, closing it firmly. He just wanted this first week to end already. He turned, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Harrington.”

Scott Harington was one of the top students at St. Andrews, came from the famed Harrington family that Kurt knew nothing about but apparently everyone else on the east coast did, and was captain of the field hockey team.

(Kurt was still clueless about field hockey but he surmised that it was basically lacrosse on the ground with weird sticks)

Scott leaned against the locker next to Kurt’s, fluffing his blonde hair back and fingering his field hockey stick idly. “Where are you scuttling off to so quickly?”

“Home,” Kurt said shortly.

Scott gave an exaggerated pout. “You can’t linger?”

“I have a sick grandmother.”

“Who’s probably making her way over to Providence for tomorrow morning’s annual Ivy Manor Garden Party that she’s managed to attend with all our grandmothers for the past decade despite illness.” Scott pushed off the locker to stand in front of Kurt. Kurt disliked the height difference. It had been fine on Finn because he’d just been some big dopey jock that Kurt had found himself crushing on. But with Scott and the other six field hockey players that had just appeared out of nowhere, it was kind of scary.

“You see,” Scott continued, not noticing Kurt’s unease. “We have practice in half an hour. You should come help us with warm-ups.” 

“No thanks,” Kurt said firmly, the knuckles gripping his shoulder bag turning white. “That’s the opposite direction from where I need to go.”

“Oh, we’re not going to the field,” Scott smiled pleasantly. “No see, we have this tradition with freshman.”

“I’m a junior.”

“You’re new,” Scott shrugged. “So…” He stopped twirling his stick and brought it up to his hands more firmly, like a club. “Gonna help us with practice?”

Kurt ran, bolting down the hall and out the door. He skidded on the ice just outside but managed to keep his footing and tore off across campus, panting as his eyes fixed on the bus that was waiting just outside the gates. His breathing grew ragged as he pumped his legs faster, ignoring the sounds of the school doors opening behind him as he shoved the gates apart, slamming them shut just as quickly as he ran onto the bus.

He jammed in two dollars’ worth in coins to the slot and the bus thankfully left the stop, just as the field hockey team pushed through the gates.

Kurt sighed a breath of relief and sat down, resting against the icy window and breathing heavily. It wasn’t the right bus to take him home, but it would at least get him within a mile of his grandmother’s house. 

An hour passed and Kurt’s eyelids fluttered open. They were getting near to his stop. He sat all the way up in his seat and cracked his neck, glancing out the window. His blood froze.

There was Scott Harrington, looking up at him from the backseat window of an expensive black car, two other teammates next to him.

Kurt stood up sharply, moving to the left side of the bus and sitting down. But out the window on that side was another black car ferrying field hockey players.

They weren’t going to let him get away.

Kurt gripped his hands tightly, looking around wildly for something, anything that could help him. They could follow him anywhere if they had cars unless…unless…

He looked out the window at the coast which was fast approaching. There was the sound of a small bell behind him. Someone requesting a stop.

Sitting very still, Kurt waited for the bus to slow to a halt. Three people got off. Kurt glanced behind him. Scott’s car had stopped and the three hockey players were walking towards the bus, intentions of boarding.

Kurt bolted, running off the bus and through the brush just off the sidewalk that led straight to the sandy beach. He heard shouts behind him and another car screeching to a stop, but he kept running until he was sprinting along the sand, the sea to his left.

“Hummel!”

Kurt just kept running, breathing heavily as his legs pumped, avoiding the sharp rocks that had begun to stick up by the surf. The rocks increased and he was forced further up the beach, towards the woods. Soon the entire beach broke off into treacherous rocks and the beginnings of a small cliff so he headed into the woods, aware of the heavy footsteps behind him that wouldn’t relent.

After passing a large twisted oak tree, he realized that he was close to his grandmother’s house and he knew the path from this point. But…they’d said that his grandmother was out of town and she probably took Edmund with her…which means that the hockey team would have the weekend to try to break into his grandmother’s house to get him and even he didn’t know where all the doors were so he couldn’t guarantee his safety…

He took a left instead of a straightish-right, hoping to lose them all in the underbrush instead so he could double back and go home. 

“You can’t run forever, Hummel!”

Kurt ignored the voice and kept trudging through the trees, shoving moss out of his way.

“When you get tired, we’ll find you! We’ll just follow your footprints!”

Kurt looked down at the snow and cursed. So he couldn’t hope to hide behind a large tree or anything. He needed shelter—

Almost immediately, he stumbled into a clearing. He was back on the beach again.

An old lighthouse loomed over him.

Deja vous hit him hard and he breathed out sharply, taking a step back. 

“Hummel!”

Kurt looked behind him, back into the woods where there was clear movement. Gritting his teeth, he ran towards the lighthouse, fingers pulling on the rusty lock and wrenching the door open, slamming it firmly shut behind him. It was completely dark.

Breathing heavily, he ran his fingers all over the cold door, surprised to find that it was wooden from this side instead of metal. He searched and searched, but dread slowly started to fill him. 

There was no lock. He had no way of keeping them out.

Stumbling blindly through the dark, he reached out with his hands until he hit cold metal railing. Finding his footing, he raced up the spiral staircase, up and up and up and up, until the top. The light stood large and unmoving, the structure probably hadn’t been operational for years. There was a roomy area around it, covered in dust, then an small door set into the large panoramic glass window that led to a small metal balcony that wrapped all the way around the structure. 

Kurt sat down heavily on the dusty floor, gripping his bag tightly. If they were going to come up, he’d knock each one of them back down the stairs one at a time.

But an hour passed.

And then another.

No one came.

The light slowly leeched from the sky and Kurt got quietly to his feet. Perhaps he’d managed to lose them after all. He glanced out the glass window, freezing.

There was a dark figure standing in the snow below, staring up at him.

A chill filled Kurt as he looked down. It was getting dark, but he could tell that it wasn’t Scott. Or anyone from the field hockey team or school. They all had to wear burgundy blazers and khaki slacks and white shirts and black ties.

No, this person was in all black and staring directly at where Kurt was.

Kurt sat down quickly, ducking his head below the glass. So the field hockey team had gotten someone else to keep watch over him while they presumedly went home and slept in their own beds. 

His cheeks felt hot and he realized that he was crying.

Brushing aside some of the dust, he curled into a ball on the ground and let sleep take him, not noticing the deep scratch marks in the wood that he’d just uncovered because it was too dark. 


	3. Chapter 3

It was still dark out when Kurt woke, but the soft gray sky was lighter, close to dawn. He sat up with a groan, twisting the cricks out of his neck and shoulders, feeling sore all over from the hard wooden floor. 

He blinked. Floor. He was in the lighthouse.

He shivered violently, tucking his knees into his chest as he looked around wildly. It was real. The lighthouse was real. He’d thought he’d just dreamt it up after he’d passed out in the snow when he was eight and had woken up in his bed, safe and sound. He’d tried looking for it once more when he was twelve, but he’d never been able to find it or that clearing with the well…

Kurt shuddered as he tucked his head in between his knees. The well. He’d hoped and prayed that that had just been a nightmare as well. 

Licking his lips, he stood cautiously, twisting his spine to crack it as he brushed the dust off of his slacks. He turned to look out the window.

The man was still standing in the snow, staring up at him. 

Kurt dropped back down below the window, heart hammering. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He wrapped his arms around his knees, shaking as the gray sky above slowly and steadily turned lighter and lighter…

There wasn’t really a point in staying still. If he went now, maybe he could make a run for it before the rest of the field hockey team arrived. Crouching down low lest he be seen, he gritted his teeth and started walking slowly down the dark staircase. His breaths echoed loudly around him as he was robbed of sight, carefully placing one foot after the other as he descended. The metal creaked and groaned and he winced as the sound echoed through the lighthouse. His heart steadily crept up and up and up into his throat as he neared the bottom, the floor coming to his feet unexpectedly and he stumbled forward.

Grasping the door handle shakily, he pushed it open.

The shock of outside distracted him from the giant claw marks on the wood of the inside of the door.

There was a path cleared for him. A perfectly cleared path that led into the woods, completely clear of snow. He looked over to wear the man had been standing, but found no one. Frowning, he walked over to the area but found…nothing.

A prickling feeling settled on the back of his neck, like he was missing something but he shook it off and walked back to the path, venturing down it.

It took him through the woods, but not a way he’d ever been. The trees started getting thicker and denser, and the snow piles larger and thicker until they were piled as high as his head, but there was still a path cut through, all the way down to the soil with straight edges. It would’ve taken a machine to do it, but the path was too narrow for a snow plow. The canopy above wove together to block out what little light had been achieved by the early morning and Kurt shivered as he continued in the darkness.

He nearly ran into the open gate, mistaking it for a tree in the dark, and put his hand on the cool metal, blinking at the large ornate ‘A’ surrounded by hammered silver flowers. He walked through the gate and stared. 

Beyond the large snow-covered garden there was a large mansion in front of him, made entirely of some sort of…blackish wood that loomed overhead. It was in the classic New England style that he’d seen all across Provincetown. He walked down the dirt path cautiously, before freezing. What if this was just some big stupid prank of the field hockey teams and he was walking right into a trap?

He turned around, looking back out of the gates into the thick woods. But why would they go to all the effort just to get him here when they had all night to get him from the lighthouse? It hadn’t been locked or anything…

He turned back towards the house and let out a scream.

There was a man standing less than two feet away from him. 

Kurt caught his breath, clutching his chest as he stared at the man, wide-eyed. He didn’t look terribly older than Kurt—college maybe? He was about the same height with slicked back curly black hair and a slim black peacoat. He had olive-ish skin but was sort of…pallid. Almost sick-looking. And he had light hazel eyes that were just sort of…staring. At Kurt. And not blinking. It was incredibly unnerving. 

“It’s cold outside,” he said quietly, his voice still seeming to carry through the whole courtyard. “Won’t you come in?” He raised his hand in offering.

Kurt didn’t think. He turned and ran.

***

His grandmother’s house was empty by the time he got back and the sun had risen behind the watery gray clouds. Kurt was soaked to the bone from the random snow piles he’d tripped over and the rain of icicles that had scraped his cheek. He wearily went up to his white and gray and black room and collapse on his bed, crying quietly against the comforter. 

He stripped his clothes off and climbed under the covers, shivering violently and sneezing. He couldn’t quite get warm but sleep took him anyways.

***

_It was dusk. The skies were heavy with clouds. Kurt stood in the middle of the meadow. The one he’d stumbled across when he was eight. It was springtime though. Flowers were everywhere, their sweet scent filling the air._

_He walked further into the meadow. The closer he got to the well, the fewer flowers there were. And then they started dying. As did the grass. He stood in front of the well and there was nothing but dirt and browned dead plants around it. It looked the same as it did when he was a child._

_Only this time it didn’t have lid._

_Kurt’s toes stood against the base of the well and he leaned over it, looking down into the dark depths. It seemed to go on forever, endless, down down down…_

_His fingers that hooked over slid on something on the inside wall of the well and he brought his hand up to his face. Dark and sticky and red…was that…blood?_

_Out of the darkness, a hand reached up and gripped his other hand and he looked down into a mass of dark hair and two sunken glittering eyes and a horrid crooked sharp smile before he was dragged down, the horrid grinding stone sound of the lid smacking back into place echoing above him._

***

Kurt sat up in bed, covered in sweat and throat raw. It was dark already. He looked around wildly, tears streaming down his face.

There was someone in his room.

He screamed, lurching over to the wall and flicked on the light.

There was no one there.

Breathing heavily he sunk back into his covers, sobbing into the material as shakes wracked his body. 

***

His grandmother returned the next night and Kurt looked like hell, a fact that she reminded him of all throughout dinner.

He couldn’t really bring himself to care. He’d had another sleepless night and haunted day as he tried to stay awake and forget the well.

“…and I hope you’ll smarten up for the White Christmas Cotillion on Friday.”

Kurt blinked, looking up from his cold mellon soup. “What?”

His grandmother raised an eyebrow. “The White Christmas Cotillion. St. Andrews and Prudence put it on every year to debut the young men and women of society.”

Kurt’s mind flickered vaguely to Prudence, the all-girls private school that his mother had attended in her youth. “Aren’t those supposed to be when you’re like…seventeen?”

“They do it for the juniors,” his grandmother said evenly. “We’ll have to find you a young lady to escort.”

“I don’t want to escort a young lady, grandmother,” Kurt said quietly. “I don’t want to go to some cotillion, I don’t want to parade around, I don’t want to smile and make nice with those sycophantic assholes.”

“Kurt Elizabeth Hummel!” she snapped, standing sharply. She tottered slightly and Edmund lurched forward to steady her. Kurt stood, napkin in hand an a worried expression on his face.

“It’s quite alright, Edmund,” she said distractedly, sitting down cautiously. Her eyes flashed up to Kurt’s. “See what you’ve done to my nerves? Stop this foolishness instantly before you wear me out further. Do you really need to be responsible for the death of another family member?”

Kurt went rigid before putting his napkin down on the table and excusing himself curtly, rushing back to his room where he slammed the door shut.  

That night he dreamt of the well again. And the next morning he awoke screaming. 


	4. Chapter 4

Kurt stood in front of the mirror in his small adjacent bathroom early Monday morning. The dark circles under his eyes made him look gaunt and sick. He'd lost a lot of weight in the past month and his ribs were starting to stick out. He'd always been pale but now it just looked unhealthy. He ran a hand through his limp hair and sighed, feeling tears of exhaustion gathering in his eyes. 

Bending over the sink, he splashed cold water on his face, letting his fingers linger against his skin. He sighed, the cool water slowly waking him up and feeling oddly comforting despite its chill.

There was a raspy sigh behind him and he froze, looking up at the mirror, blinking the water out of his eyes. 

In its reflection, he saw a girl standing behind him, long dark matted hair hanging all around her and wide eyes staring at him as she smiled, sharp teeth pointing crookedly.

Kurt spun around, back hitting the sink sharply, scream lodging firmly in his throat. He was alone.

His legs gave out, knees cracking sharply against the tile floor and he crawled under the sink, curling up into a ball. "Oh god, what's happening?" he whispered, rocking back and forth, tugging on his hair. 

He missed school that day.

***

Kurt sat at the dining table, dressed in black and gray, sipping only black coffee from a tea cup. He wasn't much in the mood to eat anything.

"I found you a lady to escort for the cotillion," his grandmother prattled on, oblivious to his current state. "Katherine Wilde. Or Kitty, as I'm told she's fond of being called. The Wildes are a good family and offer position, one of the oldest on the cape. They've been here nearly four generations now..."

Kurt blinked, lips still around the rim of his cup before he set it gently down. "Grandmother?"

She stopped talking and looked up at him, eyebrow raised.

Kurt licked his lips. "Do...do you know about an...an old mansion in the woods? Um...made with dark wood, really tall trees, an 'A' on the gate...?"

She blinked in surprise. "You mean Anderson Manor?" 

"Anderson Manor?" he echoed. "Who...who lives there?"

"Until recently, no one," she said, setting down her fork. "That's the oldest house on the cape. The Andersons have gone back generations."

"But they don't live there?" Kurt pressed cautiously. 

"No, they usually send their children off to boarding school. And they don't prefer to mix with society. Except the young men."

"Is that so?" Kurt said quietly. 

"Indeed. Then they moved to Europe before the great war," his grandmother nodded gravely. "Blaine VIII is staying at the house right now during his year off before Oxford, I think it is..."

"The eighth?" Kurt said, mind flashing back to the young man he'd met in front of the dark mansion.

"Of course. Anderson tradition. All their firstborn sons are named Blaine." His grandmother sniffed, wiping her mouth daintily with her napkin. "In fact...you were almost a Blaine Anderson."

Kurt stared. "Beg pardon?"

"My mother was engaged to Blaine V," she said nonchalantly, but the twist of her mouth betrayed her bitterness. "It was to be the joining of two of the most prominent families, but he left for England with claims of 'university'." She looked around sourly. "But everyone knows that he probably got that town hussy pregnant and ran off with her."

"Oh," Kurt said quietly, sipping at his coffee. "Do you have a picture of him?"

"I beg your pardon?" his grandmother's back straightened as she glared at him.

"I just mean..." Kurt scrambled. "I was curious about what the cape looked like back then..."

His grandmother stared at him before nodding at Edmund. He left the room, returning after a brief time with an old photo.

"That was Blaine V and my mother on the reef."

Blaine took ahold of the old silver frame and gazed at the photo of his great-grandmother. She looked remarkably like his mother and wore a long dark dress that he couldn't tell the color of because of the black and white photography. And next to her--

Kurt blinked, leaning forward. "They're practically identical," he whispered.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," Kurt shook his head. "Uh, it's a lovely photograph."

He stared at the face of Blaine V which bore an uncanny resemblance to Blaine VIII. His eyes strayed to the passerby in the photo, all of whom were going about their own business. Except...the woman with the long hair who was facing the photograph, her face smudged in the picture. 

Kurt thrusted the photo back to Edmund sharply, unnerved.

***

"Hey, Hummel!"

Kurt hissed as the broad field hockey stick jammed into the back of his neck, causing him to lose balance and fall in the snow. His jaw and palms scraped across the ice, drawing blood. He pushed off the ground, noting how similar in shade his hands were to the snow. When he pulled back, bloody imprints were left in the snow.

The team snickered and passed. Kurt remained kneeling in the snow, staring blankly at the bloody handprints.

He got up and went home.

***

Cold tap a third of the way. Hot tap all of the way.

Kurt quietly stripped his clothes as the bath filled with water, the steam filling the air and making it thick and humid.

Kurt took a deep calming breath and stepped into the tub, leaning against the porcelain ledge. He closed his eyes and let the heat take him, palms smarting from where they'd been scraped.

The tub filled and he turned off the taps with his feet. Then he leaned his right hand out and picked up the kitchen knife he'd placed on the floor.

He sat up, warm water pooling around him, turning his pallid skin pink as he lifted his left wrist out of the water, rubbing over the inside with his right thumb before awkwardly angling the large kitchen knife to his arm. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something dark and he blinked, looking down.

It was hair. Long dark swirly hair was creeping through the water around his legs. He looked at his knife and saw a distorted face staring back at him from behind his shoulders.

Kurt lurched out of the bathtub, accidentally cutting the back of his hand in his haste as he slid across the floor into the wall and crouched against it, naked and hyperventilating. 

His bathtub was empty.

Heart racing a mile a minute, something inside of him cracked. "What's going on?" he whispered, tears streaming down his face. "What the  _fuck_  is going on?"

_"Kurt..."_

The voice was unmistakably female and also whispered in his ear. He wheeled around, but there was nothing but wall.

Stumbling back into his room, he pulled his clothes on hastily, jamming a wooly beret on his head and a thick pea coat around his shoulders. He laced up his boots and wrapped a scarf around his throat before leaving the house and heading out into the woods out back.

The sun slowly began to set behind the thick blanket of clouds. 

He walked for and hour, twisting and turning and losing his way a couple of times before doubling back on his footprints until the trees started thinning out and he came to a meadow.

There it was.

The well.

Shivering slightly, he walked forward gently across the deathly still meadow, snow crunching heavily underfoot as the well came closer...closer...closer...

He stood in front of it. Despite the fact that he'd essentially doubled in height since he was eight, the stone structure still seemed...enormous. Like it'd consume him whole if he just reached out and touched--

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

Kurt spun around and there stood Blaine Anderson VIII, staring at him intently. He was wearing a simple maroon trenchcoat and gray slacks, the vivid color striking against the white background.

Kurt blinked, shaking his head. "What?"

"The well," Blaine said evenly. "It's very old. You could cause damage to it."

"Oh," Kurt said, glancing back at it nervously. "I...okay."

"Can I ask why you're on my property?"

"Your property?" Kurt echoed faintly.

Blaine raised his eyebrows. "Yes. It's been in my family for generations."

"Oh," Kurt blinked. "I'm sorry, I just...I was looking..."

"Looking...?" Blaine prompted gently.

"For answers," Kurt answered awkwardly, wringing his fingers and wincing as the sores on his palms and the cut on the back of his hand opened back up.

"Some questions are better left un--" Blaine cut off suddenly, looking down at Kurt's hands and Kurt could've sworn that his eyes darkened. "You're hurt..." he said quietly.

"I--" Kurt tried before Blaine grabbed his wrists smoothly, holding his palms up for inspection. "It's nothing, it's fine." He shrugged, shifting his scarf. 

Blaine's eyes shot up to his newly exposed jaw and cold fingers brushed against the scraped skin, lingering on his neck.

Kurt felt his pulse and temperature skyrocket.

"What happened?" Blaine asked quietly, yet his voice still carried.

"I..." Kurt licked his lips, glancing around and missing how Blaine's eyes were immediately drawn to them. "I tripped and fell at school. Skidded on the ice."

"You're lying."

"What?"

Blaine tapped his index finger against Kurt's pulse. "Your heartbeat sped up. You're lying."

Kurt blinked. "I--it's none of your business."

"You're on my property. That makes it my business."

"That doesn't even make sense."

Blaine gripped Kurt's wrist tighter. "Kurt, what happened?"

"Ouch!"

Blaine released Kurt's wrist instantly, hand flying away from his neck, an odd look flitting over his face before it relaxed back into smooth expressionlessness. "Apologies. I did not intend to hurt you." He reached out, as if to touch Kurt again before closing his hand and putting it back by his side. "I should walk you home. It's getting late."

Kurt rubbed his wrist and nodded cautiously, walking back across the meadow and into the trees again.

They stayed silent for some time.

"May I take you out for dinner tonight?"

Kurt looked over sharply in surprise. "What?"

"Lobster dinner. Tonight," Blaine said evenly. "Around eight?"

"But..." Kurt tried to wrap his head around the notion. "Why?"

"Because you seem like a pleasant young man and I'm absent company."

A part of Kurt that he'd never admit to how large seriously considered saying yes, but the rational and slightly fearful side looked at the situation logically. This was a guy who he'd met twice, both times with very little sleep and under duress who was inviting him out to dinner while they were walking in the middle of the woods in the dark. "I can't. I have homework."

"Friday, perhaps?" Blaine offered.

"Sorry," Kurt shook his head. "I have some cotillion thing I have to go to."

"Well what about--"

"I don't want to go to dinner with you, okay?" Kurt snapped, shoving his hands in his pockets as he avoided Blaine's gaze. There was a long pause.

"Forgive me," Blaine murmured gently. "I shouldn't have pressed. It's just...you don't look very well and I thought maybe some food and company might help."

"It's fine," Kurt sighed. "I mean, it's not  _fine_  fine, it's just...I'm sorry for losing my temper. I've been really exhausted lately..." Kurt rubbed at his eyes wearily, feeling the day weight down upon him.

Blaine glanced over at him, eyes serious. "Bad dreams?"

"You don't know the half of it," Kurt muttered, trying to stifle a yawn. 

They reached his grandmother's house quickly thereafter, Blaine halting at the start of the courtyard. "I'll take my leave."

"Thank you for the walk back," Kurt said sincerely. He was glad to have someone else to talk to to distract him from dark slim trees that all too often looked like stilted women. "I guess I'll see you around."

Blaine smiled softly at him. "Goodnight, Kurt Hummel."

"Goodnight, Blaine," Kurt said evenly with a small attempt at a smile before he turned and headed up the front lawn. At the door he turned, but Blaine was already dawn.

It wasn't until halfway through dinner with his grandmother that he stilled, his eyes widening. 

He had never told Blaine his name.

So how the hell had he known it?

Going upstairs after dinner, Kurt found a small white gardenia blossom on his pillow as well as a white notecard. He picked up the notecard and written on it was a message in silver ink.

_Sweet dreams, Kurt._

Spine chilled, he crawled under the covers.

And for the first time in nearly a week, he didn't dream of the woman or the well.


	5. Chapter 5

Kurt brought his arms above his head as he stretched out luxuriously in the black velvet sheets, rolling over to nuzzle his face further into the pillow. He didn't care that he was naked and exposed. The room was warm and thick with the heady scent of gardenias clogging his throat pleasantly. 

Cool lips pressed between the dimples of his hips and he sighed into the silky pillow, relaxing as the lips steadily trailed up his spine, two cold hands stroking up his sides pleasantly, sending chills through his body. A nose skimmed the back of his neck and then a face burrowed into the side of it. Kurt smiled fuzzily as he let himself be turned over, cold fingers lacing with his above his head and pressing them into the soft velvet.

Kurt breathed out heavily, drawing his knees up as the cool hard body settled over his, soft mouth sucking on his neck gently. Then harder. Then a sudden bite that caused a sharp gasp from Kurt and his back to arch off the bed, his lips moaning, "B--"

Kurt's eyes flew open. He was hot and sweaty and achy all over and writhing in his sheets. He sat up, brushing his sweat-drenched bangs off his forehead and looking around wildly, making sure that there were no long-haired girls watching him or anything.

He was alone. 

Glancing down at himself--and certain areas that were straining against his pajama pants--he sighed and collapsed back onto his pillow, squishing something soft with his cheek. He lifted his head to see the small little gardenia flower and the note card from earlier. 

Sweet dreams, Kurt.

He blushed and flicked the card across his bed, getting up for school.

***

It was amazing what a good night's sleep could do to a person. He didn't feel hazy or foggy. He didn't flinch at the sight of dark hair. Even the colors seemed to pop out a bit more.

Not that it did much for his concentration. Every five seconds his mind would shoot back to the dream, the feel of phantom lips ghosting across his skin, cold hands--why had they been cold?--gripping him tightly, soft velvet--

Kurt blinked, ducking his head to hide the heat rising on his face so he could finish his essay.

***

Horror awaited him at home.

"What...is that?" he muttered, unnerved. 

"Your grandfather's cotillion suit," his grandmother answered from her armchair as Edmund held up the atrocity. "It's what you'll wear tomorrow."

Well, it wasn't that bad. Stiff, white, shoulder padding, utterly dull looking.

"I'll look ridiculous," Kurt said flatly. "And I'm not wearing white."

"You'll look presentable," his grandmother argued. "And you will where white. It's the dress code."

"I'm in mourning!" Kurt protested.

"Your father has been dead for over a month!" His grandmother snapped. "That's more than enough time to grieve, now stop this foolishness instantly!"

Kurt glared at her before storming upstairs to his room. He looked at the picture of himself and his parents on his nightstand and picked it up, holding it to his chest as he curled into a ball on his bed and cried quietly.

After a time, he got up and grabbed his coat and boots, leaving the house out into the blizzard awaiting him. He briefly considered turning back before shaking his head and soldiering onward past the gate and into the trees for shelter. 

His hands turned numb almost instantly, but his stubbornness wouldn't allow him to turn back so he kept soldiering on through the trees, heading to where they grew denser and denser, seeking respite from the snow.

The path started to seem familiar and before he knew it he was in front of a gate with a large 'A'. He licked his lips and pulled the gate open, shivering at the icy feel of the metal.

The path up to the house was no longer cleared as it had been nearly a week ago so Kurt struggled through the snow drifts that were up to his knees as he made his way to the front door. Before he could lift his hand to knock, the door flung open, Blaine standing there slightly bewildered in a dressing gown, eyes sleepy.

"Kurt?" he asked curiously. "What are you doing here?"

"I..." Kurt blinked, looking around him. "I don't know."

"Are you alright? It's freezing outside." 

"I'm fine," Kurt muttered, frowning. Why had he come here? "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't," Blaine reassured, reaching out to lightly touch his arm. "But come in, you must be drenched."

"No, I shouldn't," Kurt shook his head. "I'm sorry, I don't really know why I came here. I should head back."

"Nonsense," Blaine said. "Come in, I insist. At least get yourself warm."

"I don't know--"

"And then I'll drive you back myself."

Kurt hesitated. He shouldn't but...he really didn't want to venture back out into the storm. So he nodded.

Blaine smiled, his white teeth flashing and Kurt felt an odd chill run down his spine. "Welcome to Anderson Manor, Kurt."

Kurt stepped through the doorway, jaw dropping slightly as he gazed up at the four story mansion. There was a grand staircase that spiraled up to all four stories, large drapes hanging over the windows, a giant chandelier that held...

 "Are those candles?" Kurt asked, staring upwards. The door shut behind him.

"Yes," Blaine whispered, lips suddenly against his ear. "I think it's romantic, don't you?" Blaine trailed his hands down Kurt's arms slowly, fingers dancing around the pulse point of his wrists.

Kurt shivered, turning in his embrace. "Romantic?"

Blaine smirked lazily at him, eyes flickering gold in the candlelight. "For you, Kurt," he whispered. "I've been waiting here for you for so long..."

In the blink of an eye, Kurt was pressed against one of the thick velvet curtains, Blaine mouthing hungrily at his neck. Kurt welcomed it, hands gripping in Blaine's hair, stretching his own neck back as Blaine nipped right over his jugular, biting down--

Kurt's eyes flew open. He was still in bed, his parent's picture clutched to his chest. 

He glanced out the window. The blizzard had stopped and snow was softly falling.

***

Kurt skipped school to snoop through his grandmother's room while she was away in Boston. His grandfather's things were in the back of the closet, but he managed to extract a black waistcoat that fit him snuggly and a striking black silk ascot. He snuck his finds back into his room and assembled his ensemble for the night to come.

Black slacks that were thin enough to allow for his leather lace-up boots which went up to his knees, a plain black dress shirt, the ascot, the waistcoat with tails and an old thin black scarf that had been his mother's once upon a time. He sat in front of his mirror and went through his old moisturizing ritual that he'd been neglecting since moving to Massachusetts and combed up his hair to former glory. 

He looked sharp, he wasn't going to lie. 

***

Kurt sat in the corner of the room that the boys were allotted for dressing as they waited for the presentations. His other classmates were bending over small sinks and tables, glancing into mirrors and fixing their hair and spraying cologne. Kurt just checked his nails and fiddled with the end of his scarf, already growing bored.

"Well well well, what's little Hummel doing here?"

Kurt suppressed an eye roll as he looked up at Scott. "Escorting Katherine Wilde," he said dully.

Scott snorted. "What, dressed like Jack Skellington?" 

Kurt sighed. "Sure. Who are you escorting?" 

"No one," Scott smirked. "That was last year. And since you arrived, they had enough men to escort the ladies. Well, if you can even call yourself that."

Kurt was saved from dying of exasperation by one of the coordinators coming in to take them to their ladies. He followed the other boys who immediately paired up with their girls--having known them all their lives. Kurt looked around vaguely until a very pretty blonde girl in a floaty white dress walked over to him.

"Kurt Hummel?" she asked, eyebrow raised disdainfully. 

Kurt nodded. "Katherine Wilde?"

"Kitty," she sighed, crossing her arms. "Perfect. All the others get elegant and glamourous Tom Fords and I'm stuck with gay and gothic Alexander McQueen."

"You do know that Tom Ford is gay, right?" Kurt rolled his eyes.

"But he has style," Kitty said with a sickeningly sweet smile. "Aren't you gays supposed to be fashionable?" She eyed his ensemble.

Kurt clenched his jaw. "Come on."

They were led through an arched hallway into a large balcony at the top of a grand staircase, parents and alums and an orchestra below around the marble dance floor. There was a speech about the history of the White Christmas Cotillion that Kurt pretty much blanked out and then they were calling the names of the ladies, followed by their escorts who'd take their hand and descend down the staircase to dance.

On and on and on it went, Wilde being the last name on the list.

"Katherine 'Kitty' Bianca Wilde," the announcer said clearly and Kitty stood at the top of the stairs, fluffing out her dress. Kurt dug his hands out of his pockets and waited for his name to be called. "Making her debut to Provincetown society and escorted by Scott Gregory Harrington III."

Kurt froze as Scott suddenly walked up from behind him and took Kitty's hand, walking down the staircase, shooting a smirk back at him. Kurt stood awkwardly, feeling a rush of humiliation overtake him as he stood at the top of the stairs alone, not sure what to do.

"Kurt Elizabeth Hummel," the announcer suddenly called and Kurt blinked in surprise as he cautiously stepped forward, glancing down the stairs nervously to wear several people had glanced up in question, Scott looking up sharply. "Making his debut to Provincetown society and escorted with Duke Blaine Devon Anderson VIII."

Kurt's head snapped to the right to see Blaine Anderson emerge from behind the announcer in a full white vintage military suit, hand extended. Unbidden, he found himself excepting the hand and the two walked down the stairs to the gaping faces below. They reached the bottom of the stairs and people started to whisper, the dancers carrying on despite their obvious glances.

"May I have this dance?" Blaine asked, bringing Kurt's hands up to his lips for a kiss.

Kurt shivered slightly. "I'm not really accustomed to dancing with men that I've only had a single conversation with."

"Well I only came here to dance with you, Kurt," Blaine said, running his thumb over the back of Kurt's hand. "So I might as well leave if I cannot."

Kurt blinked, bringing his tongue between his suddenly dry lips to part them. This time he did not miss the looked that Blaine gave him when he did so. "Well, I wouldn't want you to waste the trip."

Blaine smiled before settling his right hand on Kurt's hip and pulling him effortlessly into the flitting dancers. The waltz lilted in a sweet minor key and they spun in uniformity with everyone else.

"Duke?" Kurt questioned curiously.

Blaine smiled wryly. "Just a title, passed down from Duke Blaine Anderson I over the years. Never meant much until Blaine Anderson IV was honored by the queen." He nodded to the cords and pins on his uniform." 

Kurt nodded as Blaine bent and spun and whirled him around, getting dizzy in the masses of white that moved past. "Why did you come here to dance with me tonight?"

"Because I think you're fascinating," Blaine said simply, dipping him briefly. "And I wanted to invite you out to dinner with me tomorrow night."

"Why are you so adamant on dinner?" Kurt sighed.

"Because I want to spend time with you," Blaine said simply. "And I'll tell you everything that you want to know."

Kurt stared at him, throat suddenly dry. "What do you mean?"

"All those little questions you've been having," Blaine said quietly, leaning forward to whisper against Kurt's neck. "About the well...and the lighthouse...and those dreams you've been having..."

Kurt's eyes widened as he pulled back. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Blaine just stared at him intently. "Plus you want to spend time with me as well."

"No I don't," Kurt denied. 

"Then why is this our seventh song dancing together?"

Kurt blinked, looking around and realizing that the pace of the waltz had vastly increased and there were others on the dance floor besides those having their debut.

"Have dinner with me tomorrow."

Kurt looked back at Blaine.

"We can have lobster," Blaine said. "I know the perfect restaurant."

Kurt hesitated. "I...fine."

"Really?"

"Yes," Kurt nodded. "But you have to answer all my questions."

"I promise," Blaine smiled, whirling them off the dance floor. "I have to take my leave. Would you like a ride home?"

Kurt paused before nodding. "Fine."

The ride home was mostly silent. Kurt was surprised when 70s rock played from the radio. He'd never really pegged Blaine as the type. 

The snow continued to fall thickly outside of the warm car.

"Here we are," Blaine said as they pulled in front of the Blanc mansion. He got out and opened Kurt's door, holding out his hand for him. Kurt took it and stepped out of the car. 

"Thank you for helping me earlier," Kurt said quietly, trying to tuck a stray lock of hair behind his hair. "You...saved me from a lot of embarrassment."

"It was nothing," Blaine said, reaching up to move the lock behind Kurt's ear. They stared at each other briefly before Blaine's hand drifted down to Kurt's chest, resting over his heart. Blaine leaned in slowly and Kurt froze.

Cold breath ghosted over his ear. "Sweet dreams, Kurt," Blaine whispered before pulling back and getting into his car.

Kurt stood in front of his house, watching Blaine drive away before looking down.

In his breast pocket, where Blaine's hand had been, was a gardenia. 


	6. Chapter 6

_"Oh god, Kurt," Blaine moaned against his collarbone, snapping his hips forward. Kurt just held on tightly to his shoulders, panting--_

Kurt buried his head beneath his blankets as he startled awake, heart racing. He curled up beneath the covers and waited for his body to calm down while doing his best not to fall asleep again.

The dreams were getting more intense and vivid. And while he was glad for the reprieve from wide haunting eyes, long dark matted hair, and a crooked smile, he found that sleeping in til one and waking with his body aching and wanting was counterproductive.

He pulled off his blanket and shakily walked to the shower, intent on getting rid of his little problem.

***

At seven, he was panicking. 

He'd never been on a date before and he had no idea what he was supposed to wear. He dug through his entire--admittedly small--wardrobe to find the perfect combination and he was failing miserably.

He'd narrowed it down to red pants. That was all he could definitively decide on. 

With a sigh he headed to the master bedroom to dig through some of his grandfather's stuff. The search proved fruitless until he stumbled across a box in the back corner and he took it out, blowing dust off of it to make out the thin silver lettering.

_Charlotte Suzanne Waldorf_

His great-grandmother.

He gently lifted the lid and blinked at the glittering items displayed before him. It was her jewelry box. He ran his fingers gently over the earrings and bracelets and necklaces before lifting the tray to look in the area beneath. An assortment of brooches glittered back at him and he glanced back at the door nervously before selecting one and shoving the box back into the closet, hurrying back to his room.

***

At a quarter til eight, he finally settled on an outfit. Red pants, elbow-length white dress shirt, snug black vest and his great-grandmother's ruby lobster brooch pinned over his breast pocket. He selected a dark green pea coat and went downstairs, fingers and legs jittery with nerves.

As the clock began to chime at eight, there was a knock at the door. Kurt took a deep breath and opened it, making sure his hair was in place. 

Blaine stood on the porch with a pleasant smile, sporting smart oxford shoes, rolled khaki slacks, a gray-blue dress shirt and an adorable cardigan with lobsters all over it. Kurt felt his lips curling at the sight of it.

"Good evening," Blaine said with a slight smile. "I trust you've been well since we last parted?"

Kurt opened his mouth right when his mind decided to flashback to the dream he had last night. "I--um," he blushed. "Yes. Very well. And you?"

"Very well, thank you," Blaine replied cordially, holding out his hand. "Shall we?"

Kurt smiled politely and took his hand, closing the door firmly shut behind him.

***

"Here's your lobster, sir."

"Thank you," Blaine nodded to the waitress as the large red crustacean was set in front of Kurt.

"Wow," Kurt muttered, staring at his dinner. "You weren't kidding about this place pulling out all the stops." 

The restaurant was in a small little cozy nook on the bay--upscale yet relaxed. The nearest parking spot was four blocks away--it was a Saturday night after all--and they'd had to rush through the oncoming snow to get inside relatively un-drenched. 

"It's one of the most underrated restaurants in the city," Blaine smiled as Kurt started cracking open the lobster tail, fingers clumsy at the newness of the task. 

"Are you sure you don't want some?" Kurt questioned, tearing off a chunk of moist white flesh and dipping it into the small bowl of melted butter. "I'm not entirely sure I can eat all of this by myself..." His stomach said otherwise as he took a bite of the lobster and his eyes rolled back into his head at the taste. 

"Yeah, I'm sure," Blaine said, eyes glued to Kurt's fingers moving back and forth to his mouth. "I have a restrictive diet so I'm not afforded such luxuries."

"Then why would you take me here?" Kurt questioned, feeling slightly guilty as he took another obscenely large bite of lobster. "If you can't even eat?"

"Just to see that look on your face when you took your first bite," Blaine smiled, cupping his neck as he leant on the table and watched Kurt eat. "And let me assure you: It was well worth it."

Kurt smiled shyly back with his cheeks full before swallowing. "So...you said you'd answer some of my questions?"

Blaine nodded silently.

Kurt wiped the greasy butter off of his fingers and settled back into his chair. Then he changed his mind and kept eating because really, the lobster was way too delicious for its own good. "How did you arrange to escort me last night?"

Blaine's eyebrows shot up in amusement. "Really? That's your first question."

"Well, I'm trying to start small," Kurt insisted, chomping away happily. 

Blaine nodded. "Well, I came last night to dance at least a dance with you, as I'd stated, and I was pondering on how exactly I could get you to accept said proposal when I overheard the young Mr. Harrington bribing the announcer to add his name to the roster in lieu of yours. So I merely did some bribing of my own and I ended up as your escort."

"Okay," Kurt mumbled as he sucked the last of the meat out of the lobster, wiping his messy face on the white linnen napkin. "How did you know my name when we met in the...meadow? I hadn't introduced myself."

Blaine's eyes flickered in the low light. "We'd met a long time ago."

Kurt frowned. "When--"

"Your dessert, sir."

Kurt stared as a large slice of chocolate...something was placed in front of him by the waitress. "Oh my god, what?"

"Chocolate Godiva cheesecake," Blaine smiled, folding his hands. "I though maybe you'd enjoy it."

Kurt took a bite and groaned, quickly taking another. "But it's so good..."

"That's generally the idea," Blaine laughed as he licked his lips.

"But all this food is so rich," Kurt half-protested as he took another bite. "I swear you're trying to fatten me up for something."

Blaine laughed, the sound resonating through the restaurant. "No, I just wanted to see you looking healthy again. You were looking like you were on your deathbed for a while there..."

Kurt snorted. "What, all two times you saw me?"

"You left an impression," Blaine shrugged.

Kurt smiled and took another bite. He ate half of it before sitting back in his chair. "Okay, that was a good distraction, but I still have questions."

"I'm at your disposal," Blaine said, leaning forward.

Kurt fiddled with his fingers. "Tell me about the well."

Blaine's jaw clenched slightly and he looked off to the side. "That's...a long story."

"Does it have to do with the lighthouse?" Kurt asked quietly.

"Yes."

"And you?"

"Yes."

"And...me?"

Blaine looked back at him. "More than you know."

"Tell me."

Blaine sighed in frustration, running a hand through his hair. "I could tell you," he said slowly. "But...it wouldn't all make sense, especially here and now. Could I maybe...show you instead?"

"What do you mean?" Kurt frowned, leaning forward.

"Come back to my house," Blaine said urgently. "There are...props and other things that will help with the explanation. There's a lot of my family history that goes into this story." He stared into Kurt's eyes intently, in that odd non-blinking way that he often did. "Will you come with me?"

Kurt found himself nodding.

Blaine gave him a grateful smile. "Thank you for trusting me." He slid a credit card on the table. "Finish your cheesecake while I get the car. I don't want you catch a cold walking through that storm."

Kurt nodded happily as he dug back into his cheesecake and watched Blaine get up smoothly and leave. He frowned slightly as he caught sight of Blaine's ankles--he wasn't wearing any socks. In fact, he never really wore any socks. Kurt took another bite of cheesecake and worried. He didn't want Blaine to get snow in his shoes and for his feet to be cold.

He took a sip of water before his eyes widened and he dropped the glass. It fell to the floor and smashed, drenching his calves.

That odd feeling he'd had in the back of his neck since that day the field hockey team had chased him across town came back as memories flashed before his mind.

Walking out to wear the stranger--Blaine, it had been  _Blaine_ \--had been standing below the lighthouse, at the Anderson mansion, out in the meadow by the well with Blaine when they'd had their conversation, walking back to his house, even Blaine dropping him off last night, and now walking to the restaurant from his car, there had been one thing that he hadn't noticed consciously but had been bugging him in the back of his mind for the past week. There was one thing that was incredibly and terribly wrong.

Blaine had never left footprints in the snow.

Despite the warm rich meal that he'd just consumed, Kurt felt suddenly and horrifically cold. He glanced around, panicked, before grabbing his coat and running out of the restaurant, heading for the bus stop which was gratefully in the opposite direction of where Blaine had parked his car. Kurt buttoned up his coat as he ran, holding an arm up against the thick snow that was falling, a rumble off in the distance. It was going to be a thunder snowstorm. 

Part of him wanted to turn back and find Blaine and demand answers but the much larger part of him was running on full-blown terror and honestly didn't want to know what Blaine had to say, he just wanted to get the hell out of here, maybe he'd head out of town and go to Boston for the weekend or--

Something hit him hard on the back of his head and he went crashing down into the sidewalk.

"Look what we have here, boys!" A familiar voice laughed and as if his night couldn't get any worse, Scott Harrington and the rest of the field hockey team crowded around him, all of them leaning slightly and stumbling against each other. "Itty bitty Hummel, strutting around Provincetown late at night! You know, Hummel. We never did get that practice, did we?"

"And we just had our first loss of the season," another one--Humphrey?--said, swinging his stick around. "If only you'd helped us out with that practice, we might have gotten a perfect record this season."

"Instead you ran off, shirking your duties," Williams muttered darkly as Kurt tried to get to his feet. 

He received a swift kick to the ribs for his effort.

"And then," Scott sighed. "I swoop in as Kitty's savior, rescuing her from the horrors of the town freak and hoping that she'll be thankful and pay me back in kind--" There was lecherous laughter all about. "--but no. She was too furious that she was upstaged by you who managed to get escorted by a fucking duke."

Scott swung hard and smacked Kurt in the side of his head with his stick and the others quickly followed suit. Kurt threw his arms over his head which left his stomach exposed for sharp kicks. Someone hit the middle of his spine hard and he screamed out which only seemed to spur them on more. 

There was a brief reprieve as Kurt coughed up blood into the snow before Scott grabbed him by his hair and hauled his head up. He punched him across the face. Then again. And again. And again. And--

"ARGH!"

It happened fast and Kurt missed it because he blinked. But he saw Scott's hand hanging in front of him. It was still gripping his hair, but it was also detached from Scott's body.

Kurt tore the hand from his hair, backing away in the freezing snow as he looked up.

The field hockey players were panicking because one by one they were being torn apart. it was too fast and everything was a blur, but in a matter of seconds, Kurt was sitting in blood-drenched snow, halves and thirds of bodies littering the sidewalk all around him, flesh completely ripped apart. 

There was a choked-off gurgling noise and Kurt looked up to see Scott, handless and eyes wide, quickly losing their light, twitching violently with some...thing burrowed in his throat, slurping noisily. 

Kurt's breath was coming in quick bursts, unable to get a full deep breath as his heart hammered in his chest as he saw Scott's eyes go dim.

Finally, the dark curly-haired...thing lifted its head from Scott's neck.

Blaine's face was smeared with blood, his eyes completely black as he smiled at Kurt, revealing fangs.

"Oops."


	7. Chapter 7

Kurt was shaking, tears streaming down his face as his bloody and bone-white hands gripped the steering wheel of Blaine's car. The snowstorm was growing thicker and he had the lights and wipers on fullblast but he still nearly missed the turn-off for his house. He turned the car sharply to the left and stopped just inside the gate before rushing out of the car and closing it behind him, securing the lock. He got back into the car and sped down the long driveway.

A very very small part of him was wanting to feel guilty for just lurching off the snow and stumbling into the open door of Blaine's still-running car and taking off, but that small part was all-but silenced by the sheer amount of overwhelming fear and confusion and horror that was rushing through him. 

He parked the car diagonally in front of his door and stumbled out, one leg bruised and the other one feeling like it might be sprained in an area or two.

A horrible creaking screeching noise came from behind him and he turned to see Blaine wrenching the gate open, snapping the lock like it was a twig. Kurt hurried inside, locking the door firmly behind him and backing away, tripping over the rug and falling back on it.

The entire door shook as something crashed into it and then there was an earth-shattering pounding against it. 

" _Kurt Elizabeth Hummel! Open this door this instant!_ " 

Kurt burst into tears, clutching his face that was wet and sticky with melted snow and blood. "Please go away, please go away, please go away--"

" _I'm not going away now open this door and invite me inside!_ "

"Go away go away go away go away--"

Blaine's voice turned slightly desperate. " _Kurt you have to invite me in!_ "

Kurt winced as he got to his feet and stumbled up the stairs. The pounding on the door echoed through the house and he ran to his room, closing the door shut and locking it. His room was dark and he sank down on his bed, clutching his pillow to his chest and trying to calm his breathing as the pounding on his door eventually subsided. 

Lightning flashed through his room from the storm outside, illuminating the window and what was just outside it.

Blaine was hanging onto the top ledge of his window with one hand and staring inside at him, expression livid.

Kurt jumped off the bed, hand covering his mouth.

"Kurt." Despite the glass between them, Blaine's voice rang loud and clear. "Open. This. Window."

Kurt shook his head, slowly backing away.

"Kurt, you're injured," Blaine tried again. "You need to tend to them, now open the window."

Kurt tried to stop crying but it didn't really work.

Blaine glared at him before gripping the bottom of the window and shoving it up, sliding easily into the room.

"What--" Kurt gasped and suddenly Blaine was standing just inches away, dripping water and slush all over the carpet, the snow running down his face causing the blood to smear and streak down into his cardigan. "You said I had to invite--"

"Oh you invited me into this room years ago," Blaine said darkly before he grabbed Kurt around the waist and hauled him out the window. Kurt screamed as they fell but Blaine landed softly in the snow and suddenly they were in front of his car. Kurt looked behind them and there were no footprints in the snow. 

He blinked and he was in the passenger's seat, buckled in, and Blaine was starting the car, pealing out of the driveway and into the woods. 

Kurt clutched his seatbelt tightly and stared straight ahead, willing himself not to look to his left. He unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door.

Blaine snatched him back by his collar and snapped the door shut, locking it, all without swerving an inch. "Nice try, Kurt."

Kurt burst into tears. "Please let me go, Blaine. Just please I haven't done anything wrong, please--"

"You wanted answers, you're going to get answers," Blaine replied darkly and Kurt curled up in the seat, sobbing into his knees.

It didn't take long to reach Blaine's house and Blaine unbuckled him before throwing him over his shoulder and walking into his house, slamming the door shut. There was a giant blur of color and Kurt was dropped on something soft. It was dark until one by one candles were lit all across the enormous room and he saw that he was on a giant four-poster bed with a thick maroon comforter. He looked up and Blaine was suddenly standing in front of him again.

Kurt tried to scurry backwards across the bed, but Blaine held him firmly in place by the back of the neck.

"Calm down," Blaine said, pushing Kurt until he was lying down. "And hold still, or else this is really going to hurt."

"Please don't!" Kurt said, shoving against Blaine's shoulders, but Blaine just leaned down and sunk his teeth into Kurt's neck.

It burned and hurt and Kurt screamed and thrashed and pleaded and cried. It felt like hours, but couldn't have lasted more than five seconds before Blaine was pulling back and biting down sharply on his own wrist until his cheeks were bulging and he went back to Kurt's neck, pushing the liquid out of his mouth and into the wound. 

It was like a fever ran through Kurt's body at rapid speed until he went lax, eyes hazy as he grew incredibly lethargic. 

"There we go," Blaine muttered, wiping his mouth before he leaned over Kurt and started licking at his head wound, tongue lazily tracing back and forth, before moving to a scrape on his jaw, then--oh god was that a rib?--something poking out of his stomach that he pushed back in with a finger before licking over it. 

The pain started to dull to a point and the fever rushed through Kurt again before gathering up in his neck and Blaine lurched forward, licking over his neck in a long broad stripe and Kurt felt his skin start to stitch back together.

"There," Blaine muttered, backing off of the bed. "You're done."

He walked over to his dresser and started unbuttoning his cardigan. He blurred, and then he was shirtless and in a different set of pants, pulling a long-sleeved striped tee shirt over his head, wiping the blood off his mouth and the snow out of his hair with his bloodied dress shirt. "Here." He threw a pair of matching pajamas at Kurt. "Come downstairs after you change."

And then he was alone. 

Kurt breathed heavily, looking around the giant room before slowly taking off his clothes, surprised to find no discomfort or soreness or...anything. He touched the side of his head where he'd been bleeding profusely, but found only smooth skin. He hurriedly pulled off his clothes--which had been drenched with his blood and that of the field hockey team's--and pulled on the cotton pajamas before cautiously walking out into the hall, his legs feeling completely healed.

He found the top of the staircase easy enough and looked down, all the way down to the bottom floor. He had no idea what waited for him down there, but this past week had been completely terrifying and he honestly didn't want to know.

He gripped the railing tightly and pushed himself over, headfirst. 

The fall was incredibly fast and terrifying, but he closed his eyes and--

\--landed firmly in Blaine's arms.

"You really need to stop trying to take your life," Blaine said darkly and suddenly they were in a large hight-ceilinged sitting room and Kurt was being deposited in a squashy armchair. "That trick with the knife you pulled earlier this week wasn't funny. Drink."

Kurt looked to the table to his right and saw a glass of...cognac?. "That wasn't the intention," Kurt said faintly as Blaine sat in a chair across from him, watching him broodily. "And...how did you find out about that?"

"Your bathroom door was open when I went to put the gardenia on your bed. There was blood on the knife but it doesn't take a genius to put together a knife and a full bathtub."

"You put the gardenia in my room?" Kurt asked.

Blaine rolled his eyes. "I thought that'd be obvious by now."

Kurt licked his lips. "Why?"

"Because you said you'd been having bad dreams."

Kurt flushed and snatched up the tumbler, taking a long gulp before coughing and spluttering into the glass.

"Try sips," Blaine said dryly. "The intent is to warm you up and calm your nerves, not get you hammered."

"So," Kurt coughed. "So...you...you're a...a..."

"A vampire."

"Yeah," Kurt said quietly.

"Yes," Blaine said. "I don't age, I drink blood from the living, can't go out in extreme sunlight, no footprints or reflections, the whole deal."

 Kurt nodded, taking another sip of cognac. "And you...sent...me...dreams?"

Blaine's lips curled up in a smile. "I merely replaced myself in your dreams. What your subconscious decided to do with me...that was all on you, Kurt." 

Kurt's eyes widened as he took another long sip, hoping to change the subject. "You uh...you said that you replaced yourself? So...do you know who that woman was? With the long dark hair?"

Blaine's smile turned grim. "Marlene Rose. Or Marley, as she liked to be called."

"Marley," Kurt mumbled. "Does...does this have to do with my great grandmother?"

Blaine looked at him in surprise. "Yes. How did you know that?"

"I saw a picture," Kurt said, fiddling with the glass. "Of my great-grandmother and your great--wait a minute..." he whispered. "Was that you? Are you Blaine V?"

Blaine nodded with a sigh. "Yes, that was me."

"You were engaged to my great-grandmother."

"Yes."

"So..." Kurt started piecing things together in his mind. "So Marley's a vampire too, right?"

"Yes."

Kurt licked his lips. "So she turned you? And that's why everyone thought you two ran off together?"

Blaine stared at him before bursting out into a laugh. "Wait, is that what you think?"

Kurt blinked. "That...isn't what happened?"

"No no no, Kurt," Blaine chuckled. "1914 is what happened. Here--" he was suddenly across the room, in front of a large wall of drapes. Kurt assumed they hid windows, but was proven wrong when Blaine pulled open the one on the far right side. "This is Duke Blaine Anderson VIII." It was a painted oil portrait of him looking exceedingly dashing in a black suit. "And VII." Blaine again. "VI." Blaine. "V." Blaine, in the same suit that Kurt had seen in the photo with his great-grandmother. "IV." Blaine. "III." Blaine. "II." Blaine. "I." Blaine. All Blaine.

Blaine was back in his chair. "Kurt, I'd been a vampire for a very long time before I met your great-grandmother."

Kurt stared at the eight oil paintings of the same face and shook his head. "I'm confused."

"Then let's start at the beginning," Blaine suggested. "I was turned in 1783 by a vampire named Wesley Montgomery. Well...I think that was his name. I joined his coven. It was just me, him, Mike, and Tina. Pretty simple. We didn't draw attention to ourselves or kill needlessly or anything stupid like that.

"We moved to England for a while and thrived there in secret, gaining titles and land and prestige even though no one really knew who we were. Victorian society was emerging and..." He looked off into the fireplace, expression growing dark. "That's when we met Marlene Rose.

"She was a regular girl. Lovely voice. Wes took an interest in her originally and started using her for feeding. She desperately wanted to become one of us, but Wes didn't want to turn her because...he'd grown attached to her...well, how alive she was and he didn't want to see her light go out or something or other. I'm not entirely sure.

"Marley left and Wes was devastated. He even stopped feeding for a while before we helped him get back on his feet. A decade later Marley showed up again but she'd been turned. And she...killed Tina."

"Oh my god," Kurt whispered.

"We didn't even see it coming," Blaine murmured, eyes sliding back to Kurt. "Wes had just been so overjoyed to see her again and we'd left the two alone when we went out one night and we came back and...Mike was beside himself because they'd been together for nearly two hundred years. We ended up breaking apart after that. I went to the Americas and gained a friend in a young Charlotte Waldorf. She was only fourteen at the time and I was posing as seventeen. She grew up and was engaged to a man she loathed so I stepped in and offered my hand just to help her out of the situation.

"And then Marley showed up again. She...became obsessed with destroying me since I was Wes' creation and she went after Charlotte. I would've just grabbed her and gotten off the cape but..."

Kurt waited patiently. "But?"

"1914," Blaine said grimly. "The canal was built. Cape Cod stopped being a peninsula officially and became a technical island."

Kurt stared. "So...?"

"So..." Blaine sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "Vampires can't cross running water. And there wasn't a bridge yet, just a ferry, so Marley and I were both stuck." 

"What did you do?"

"Built a trap. And I fell for one as well. The old well on my property. I made sure it was stable before pouring dead man's blood all along the walls and into the water. No one used the well, so it was fine. And vampires can't drink dead man's blood or they'd die. I made it a hawthorne lid and gave it iron latches. We can't cross iron and hawthorne makes us sick to the touch."

"Really?" Kurt frowned.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"We can only be killed with hawthorne stakes."

"What about garlic?"

Blaine rolled his eyes. "No, garlic's fine."

"Oh," Kurt settled back into his chair, disappointed. He took another sip. "So you caught her?"

"Threw her down the well," Blaine nodded. "And latched it shut. It was foolproof. She couldn't get out. But..." He sighed, running his hands through his hair. "I fell for another trick. Charlotte's suitor...knew what I was. He was from an old family of vampire hunters and...and I was stupid. I smelled Charlotte's scent. Fresh blood. And I ran towards it into the lighthouse. It was just a handkerchief, drenched in her blood. Then the lighthouse door slammed shut. And locked from the outside."

Kurt stared. "Couldn't you just break your way out?"

Blaine smiled grimly. "Iron. The entire outside was made of iron. I couldn't cross it. Even the diamond strips over the window was made of iron. And the entire interior was made of hawthorne wood."

Kurt licked his lips, already guessing how this ended in the back of his mind, but still needing to confirm it. "Blaine...how long were you in there?"

Blaine smiled at him, but it held no amusement. "Until a little eight-year-old boy opened the door and let me out."

Kurt gaped in horror. "But that was--"

"Nearly ninety years," Blaine answered. "Hell of a time to go without blood, let me tell you."

"And Marley?"

"Still down there in the well. First thing I did was make sure she was secure. She was, mostly, except someone had pushed a small stone inside so she stared at me for a good minute while I found another stone to jam in."

"That was me," Kurt murmured, glancing down in his lap.

"I know," Blaine said grimly. "I didn't at first, but when you started having nightmares that first night..."

"How did you...you were in my room, weren't you? When I woke up and thought I saw someone in my room?"

"Yes," Blaine nodded.

"How did you get in? You said that I invited you..."

"When you were eight. I--" he broke off and looked to the side, suddenly ashamed. "I'm not proud of it, but I almost...I mean, I hadn't drank in nearly a century and you were right there..."

"You--"

"No. I mean, almost, but I ran off and found a bear." His nose wrinkled. "It was disgusting. But it got me clear-headed enough to go check on Marley, then I went back and found you. You were so little and you looked so much like Charlotte had. I found your house and woke you long enough to persuade you to invite me into your room before tucking you in."

Kurt nodded slowly as silence filled the room for a time. "Why...why did Marley start showing up in my dreams?"

"Because you're back here and close to her," Blaine said, leaning forward. "You were the first face she saw in nearly ninety years and you look remarkably like Charlotte. This is her favorite method. Stalk you in your dreams until you either die of fright or you go to the well seeking answers, which you did until I stopped you."

"But I saw her everywhere," Kurt murmured. "In the woods, in the bath with me..."

"The nightmares caused you to stop sleeping, didn't they? You were so sleep deprived that you were half asleep most of the time and she just kept invading your subconscious, feeding off your fear. That's why I intervened."

Kurt nodded softly. "So she's just...waiting down there to kill me? Or you?" 

Blaine nodded. "Which is why we have to keep you alive."

Kurt sagged in his chair, overwhelmed. "Why...why did you kill the whole field hockey team?

In the blink of an eye, Blaine was right in front of him, leaning over his chair. His eyes had turned black. "Because they harmed you," Blaine murmured. "And trust me, their deaths were much faster than they deserved, but I had to tend to your wounds."

Kurt shuddered slightly but gave a soft nod.

"Come," Blaine said shortly. "Let's get you to bed."


	8. Chapter 8

Kurt yawned as he drifted from sleep, rubbing against his eyes with his fists as he snuggled under the soft velvet sheets, gently blinking his eyes open.

Blaine was standing next to the bed, staring down at him.

Kurt lurched back up against the pillows, holding the comforter up to his chest. 

"Good morning," Blaine said quietly. 

"What are you doing?"

"Watching you sleep."

That did nothing to help Kurt's internal panicking. "And why were you watching me sleep?"

Blaine sighed and climbed onto the bed, leaning back against one of the posts at the foot of the bed. "I scared you last night. I apologize, that wasn't my intention."

"Well you did a pretty thorough job of it," Kurt shot back before closing his eyes and wincing. "I mean..."

"No, you're right," Blaine said softly. "But Kurt, you have to understand...I'm not human. I know I look like it--" He scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. "--but I haven't been human in over two hundred years. I'm not--I don't--" He sighed, raking his hands through his hair. "I don't react in appropriate ways. I try, I really do, I mean...I was going to do everything right. Dance with you. Take you on a date. Try to explain slowly what I was and ease you into the idea--"

"Why?" Kurt whispered.

"Because I wanted to do it the right way," Blaine said quietly.

"No," Kurt shook his head. "I mean why me? Because of my great-grandmother?"

"No. I mean, yes, partially, but...never mind, it isn't important."

"It's important to me," Kurt said, staring at him.

Blaine looked down in his lap silently. "But the point is...I went back to the restaurant looking for you and you were gone." 

"I realized that something was wrong," Kurt murmured. "You didn't have footprints. You never have."

Blaine smiled bitterly, looking back up at him. "I was wondering what it was that'd caused you to leave. And then I went looking for you because it was snowing hard and I was afraid you'd catch pneumonia and...I heard it. Well, I smelled it first."

"Smelled what?"

His eyes went black. He looked livid, but not directed at Kurt. "Your blood. Everywhere. Even the storm couldn't block it out. And I heard you crying over lots and lots of laughter. So I--"

"Ripped them all to pieces," Kurt finished, looking down at his fingers uncomfortably.

Blaine sighed. "Yes."

Silence filled the room.

"They hurt you," Blaine said in a small voice. "They probably would have kept going and left you there to die."

"And for that, they all deserved to?" Kurt said, looking up and blinking back tears. "Blaine, they're just teenagers--"

"Don't try and make excuses for what they did," Blaine snapped, teeth grinding together. "Kurt they could have very well killed you last night. Their thoughts and actions were their own despite their age."

"But you didn't have to kill them!"

"Why do you care so much?"

"I didn't want twelve teenagers to die because of me!" Kurt's voice cracked as the tears spilled over. 

Blaine licked. "I...I can't feel sorry for what I did, Kurt. I can't even feel guilty. I told you, I'm not human. Those emotions just aren't...there for me."

"But I am human, Blaine!" Kurt said, wiping at his eyes. "And the fact is, it's my fault that they're all dead."

"It's not--"

"If I hadn't left the restaurant, they'd still be alive."

"You were scared! If they hadn't have attacked you, they'd still be alive. It was their actions that caused it, Kurt, and mine that carried it out. And if I hadn't, they would have killed you!"

"Well maybe that's what I wanted!"

Blaine stared at him, eyes slowly receding from black to hazel. "Kurt, why do you keep trying to end your life?" he whispered.

Kurt looked down at the comforter. "I...have nothing, Blaine. My mom's dead. My dad's dead. Grandma hates me but she's pretty much dead as well. I have no friends. I have no...dreams. I did but...everything just seems so pointless now. I don't belong here. Or in Lima. Or anywhere, really. I don't...I can't...I'm trying to find a reason to live, but I can't seem to--" He breathed out slowly, closing his eyes. He opened them slowly and looked at Blaine. "And now with everything going on here, I feel like it's some big cosmic sign that I'm supposed to be dead."

Blaine didn't say anything. Instead he moved to crawl under the covers.

"What are you doing?" Kurt muttered.

"It's almost dawn," Blaine said, lying down. "My turn to sleep."

"No coffin?" Kurt quipped.

Blaine smiled wryly but it came out as more of a grimace. "No. I stocked the kitchen downstairs so you can eat if you'd like."

Kurt nodded and slid out of bed. He got to the door before Blaine's quiet voice ghosted over to him.

"I was watching you sleep because I'm in your dreams and I terrified you last night. I wanted to make sure that you wouldn't have any nightmares. And I'm sorry for scaring you at your house. I know I was forceful, but I was frightened that if I didn't get to you in time that you'd die."

Kurt nodded silently before leaving the room.

***

He waited a couple of hours, eating apples and pepper jack cheese in the kitchen before he took the knife from the block and sat down against the counter. His heart hammered and he checked the reflection in the knife a million times to make sure there wasn't someone behind him before he brought it to his wrist and drew across it sharply. 

He hissed at the pain as thick red blood trailed down his wrist and onto his palm, pooling there briefly before moving on to his fingers. He bit his lip as he shakily brought the knife to his other wrist and--

The knife was suddenly gone from his grasp and Blaine was in front of him, drawing his wrist to his mouth and licking across it, sealing the wound before sucking all the blood off his fingers. 

"Don't," he murmured, lips gently caressing Kurt's fingers. "Do that again." In a blink, he'd vanished.

Walking through the mansion minutes later, Kurt found all the sharp object removed.

***

Day and night blended together when there was only artificial light.

Perhaps a day passed.

And then another.

And then Kurt found himself trying again. 

He wasn't as foolish this time. He knew that open wounds weren't the way to go.

He found the liquor cabinet and took out the cognac.

And the scotch.

And the tequila.

And the vodka. 

And he mixed them all together in a big glass jar thing that he found next to them, cleaned out the dusty glass and poured himself a cup, sitting on the thick lush rug in front of the fireplace, idly tracing the pomegranate patterns with his finger as he gulped the awful concoction down.

Then another glass.

Then a third.

Then a fourth.

After the fifth it got easier and easier because his tongue and throat were practically numb and he just held the glass jar in his hands and tipped it down his throat, wincing at the burn. 

Everything went blurry and before he knew it he was bent over a toilet, Blaine's fingers shoved down his throat and making him throw up everything. Acid and bile burned his mouth but Blaine wouldn't stop pressing his fingers down his throat until Kurt was dry-heaving over the toilet.

Blaine disappeared and came back with what looked like half a roll of bread and a glass of water. He gave Kurt small pieces of the bread to chew methodically, making sure that he ate the whole half-loaf. Then he bit his own wrist and poured a couple of drops into the glass of water, before shoving it at Kurt.

Kurt pressed back against the wall but Blaine brought the glass against his lips, tipping it until Kurt started to drink, his insides no longer burning as Blaine's blood healed everything.

All the alcohol and dangerous chemicals vanished from the cabinets as well.

***

Kurt sighed, the last of his breath coming out as bubbles and floating to the top of the tub. He just relaxed against the cool ceramic of the bathtub as his lungs steadily burned.

A cold hand gently grasped the back of his neck and pulled him up. Kurt blinked the water out of his eyes as he looked at Blaine who was leaning over the bath's ledge, looking at him sadly. "Drowning? Really?"

Kurt shrugged. "I thought it was very Hamlet of me."

Blaine sighed, pressing his forehead against Kurt's. "Kurt...please stop doing this."

"Will you let me go home?"

"Where you can rescind your invitation and leave me stranded outside your house while you try and kill yourself?"

"You have no right to keep me here."

"You're right," Blaine said. "But I'm going to keep you here anyways. I don't want you to die."

"It's not your choice."

"I don't care," Blaine whispered. "You saved my...well, not life. I'm not even sure how to live. But you saved me. From that lighthouse. I'm going to save you too, no matter what."

"You can't always be there--"

"I can. I drank some of you blood, Kurt. The night I gave you mine for the first time so that you could heal. It's inside of me and I can always feel your blood. Whether it's spiking with adrenaline because you're jumping off the staircase, or it's spilling on the floor from a cut, or if the blood/alcohol level has spiked, or even if the oxygen percentage has dropped due to suffocation." His eyes traced Kurt's face carefully. "I'll always feel when you're in trouble and nothing, not even a rescinded invitation, will be able to stop me from getting to your side in time to save you."

Kurt glanced down at the rim of the tub.

"And I think..." Blaine continued quietly. "That you need to start sleeping during the day so I can keep a better eye on you."

***

That night, Blaine kept Kurt awake until dawn with ridiculous stories of Cape Cod in the early twentieth century, flicking Kurt whenever he started to doze off.

As the sun rose, they climbed into bed together and slept through the day.

 


	9. Chapter 9

_"Kurt," Blaine whispered reverently, ghosting his fingers across Kurt's stomach. "Kurt..."_

Kurt's eyes flew as he shuddered and burrowed his face deeper into Blaine's shoulder.

He blinked.

Blaine's...shoulder.

He slowly pulled his head back, realizing that he'd rolled over to Blaine's side of the bed-- _again_ \--and had sort of rucked up Blaine's shirt and his left hand was over Blaine's bellybutton and rubbing circles absentmindedly--

"Um...good evening."

Kurt tilted his head further up and saw that Blaine was very much awake and very much staring at him unblinkingly. Kurt's hand froze. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Blaine said hurriedly but Kurt was already rolling over to his half of the bed and trying to go back to sleep.

***

Nightlife in Anderson Manor turned out to be vastly different from day life. For one, Blaine was literally always around and almost always in the same room as Kurt--save for the bathroom, but Kurt knew he was close by. 

He'd be re-cataloging the library or arranging small little bouquets of gardenia blossoms all around the various floors or showing Kurt the jewels he'd accrued for "services to the queen" or putting labels on the cabinets so Kurt could know where everything was, but Blaine was always around. 

And his close proximity made Kurt increasingly aware of a fact that he'd been trying to ignore for a while.

For a dead guy...Blaine was attractive. 

... _very_  attractive.

***

Kurt was in the attic. It was one of his favorite places in the whole mansion because it was crammed full of odd paraphernalia that Blaine had collected over the centuries and these romantic oil lamps that lit the level and arching beams all over the place. 

He moved past a cupboard full of exquisite French rococo jackets that Blaine had claimed to have retrieved from Versailles during the French Revolution, back towards a chest full of old Italian blown glass when something swooped down in front of him.

It was Blaine, hanging upside down, knees hooked on one of the lower beams.

Kurt breathed out heavily, trying to stop his heart from hammering--half from fright and half from Blaine's shirt which had fallen down to reveal the bottom half of his stomach. "You know, supervising me twenty four-seven to make sure I don't do anything will backfire on you eventually because one of these days you're going to give me a heart attack from just popping up everywhere."

"Apologies," Blaine smiled grimly, unamused at the joke. "That was not the intent."

"What was?" Kurt quipped. "Attempting to invoke the ancient vampiric ritual of bat transformation and practicing for when you become successful?"

Blaine rolled his eyes. "I was going to tell you that it's almost dawn and you should come to bed."

"Okay," Kurt nodded. Then he frowned. "Blaine are you...are you alright?" 

Blaine had dark circles under his eyes and he looked fairly paler than usual, his cheeks slightly sunken in. He averted his eyes. "Fine."

Kurt slowly reached out and cupped his cheek, leaning in closer. "Blaine are you... _thirsty_?"

Suddenly Blaine was out from under his hand and walking down the ladder. "Come. It's time for bed."

***

Kurt spit out his toothpaste into the sink and gargled water, ignoring the flush that was high in his cheeks. He wiped his mouth with one of the insanely soft towels that Blaine favored and stared at his expression, wide-eyed, unable to believe he was about to do this. 

Licking his lips, he considered splashing water on his face but no, maybe he should keep his face warm because that might help? Or would it make things worse? He groaned, putting his head in his hands before standing up straight and smoothing back his hair. Now or never.

He unbuttoned one button on his nightshirt.

He frowned, then took off the undershirt he had on and put his nightshirt back on. 

Yes, perfect. He gave himself an assured nod that managed to also come off as slightly terrified before he opened the bathroom door and went into the bedroom, heart hammering.

Blaine was already in bed, propped up against the pillows and reading a small book in...

"Is that...Winnie the Pooh...in Latin?"

Blaine smiled, setting the book on the bedside table. "It's a very stimulating read." He leaned over to turn off the lamp. "Are you ready for bed?"

"Wait!" Kurt said, reaching over to touch his shoulder then pulling back awkwardly. "I...um...I mean, there's something I wanted to...discuss with you."

"Oh?" Blaine questioned, sitting back on the pillows, folding his hands over his lap.

"Well..." Kurt said, fiddling with his fingers. "You're kind of reluctant to leave me alone for five minutes--"

"Last time I did that was the bath tub incident," Blaine cut across, folding his arms tightly, jaw clenched.

Kurt cursed internally. Blaine was supposed to be relaxed for this and also his flexed arms were incredibly distracting. He tried to reroute the conversation back to where he wanted it. "Yes. But as a result you're...Blaine, when was the last time you...drank something?"

"The knife incident," Blaine glared. "In the kitchen."

"That's not what I meant," Kurt sighed. "I meant...like at least a proper mouthful or two. Or three or whatever. Was...was it Scott?"

Blaine sighed, looking to the side before nodding. 

Kurt nodded in response, surreptitiously scooting closer to Blaine, palms sweating.

Blaine looked at him suddenly, frowning. "Are you okay?"

"Me?" Kurt squeaked, freezing in his venture to cross the bed. "I'm fine."

Blaine's brow furrowed and suddenly he was across the bed, hands framing Kurt's face as he looked back and forth in his eyes. "Kurt, your heart is beating out of control and your blood has a slight spike of adrenaline. You're not about to do something stupid, are you?"

Kurt stared at him, panicking, before it all sort of came rushing out. "Well, I always feel guilty eating around you because you look half-starved most of the time and you were giving that red wine in the cellar a desperate look the other night and I mean all you have here is super rich food and as long as I'm gaining basically ten pounds like I think my blood is healthy or whatever unless you're allergic to certain blood types which wow okay I didn't think of that but I'm A- if that helps and as long as it doesn't hurt as much as it did last time though I also had a bunch of broken bones then too but--"

Blaine pressed a finger to Kurt's lips, expression half-amused and half-panicked. "Kurt, it's fine, honestly. I can go without blood for a while."

"But--" Kurt muttered against Blaine's finger, but Blaine just pushed it in further. 

"I'm fine," Blaine smiled. "Now let's go to bed, okay?"

"Okay," Kurt murmured, feeling another flush of embarrassment overtake him as he looked down awkwardly and rubbed his neck, missing Blaine's eyes darting towards it at the movement. 

The light went out and Kurt went to sleep.

***

_Blaine propped Kurt up on the counter as he licked across his collarbones ravenously, shoving all the ingredients off and to the floor as he ripped off Kurt's apron and--_

Kurt blinked as he stared down at his cutting board. He ducked his head as Blaine kept on talking about Imperial Russia and the extravagant balls he'd attended there.

"Did you break many princesses' hearts?" Kurt asked absently as he set aside the pecans and started chopping up part of the huge block of dark chocolate, intent on making chocolate chip pecan cookies come hell or high water.

(He'd been allowed knife privileges under Blaine's supervision)

"It wasn't my fault," Blaine sighed, leaning back against the high cabinets. He was sitting on the counter and fiddling with a zest grater absentmindedly. "I never indicated that I wanted to marry any of them yet they still expected--"

"Ouch!" Kurt hissed, clutching his arm. The knife had gotten stuck in the block of chocolate and he'd attempted to wrench it out and it'd cut the inside of his left arm when it'd finally come free. "Damn," he muttered, licking his lips as blood started to spill over it. "That wasn't on purpose, I swear. Could you fix it--"

He turned and Blaine was right there, eyes black, staring down at Kurt's arm.

Kurt blinked in surprise. "Blaine?"

Suddenly his arm was clutched between Blaine's hands tightly and Blaine's mouth was over the cut, sucking at it and slurping loudly. Kurt watched in shock as Blaine lifted his mouth away for a second and suddenly there were two sharp fangs sliding out and he bit down on Kurt's arm.

It was...well, it hurt a lot and Kurt's jaw clenched tightly and his neck strained as his head snapped backwards but the pain passed quickly and it was just sort of...

Well, it was kind of awkward. 

It was a weird angle to begin with and it still hurt but it was that really annoying digging pain, like when Kurt would get blood work done and the freaking doctor would jab his arm fifty times with a needle, trying to get the appropriate vein. 

That's what Blaine kept doing. He'd sink his teeth in deep before drawing back abruptly, then sinking them in again, then drawing back, and after a while, Kurt just found himself staring down at his arm with a mix of morbid fascination.

"Uh...Blaine?"

Blaine froze, pulling his fangs out and looking up at Kurt, his mouth smeared a little with blood. But unlike last time when Kurt had seen him like this and he'd committed grand theft auto in his extreme terror, this time Blaine looked kind of...cute. Like a kid who was found with his hand in the cookie jar and Kurt almost giggled at the image of little mini vampire Blaine munching on a big snicker doodle with his fangs. 

But in a blink, Blaine disappeared.

***

Kurt looked for him all night. He wandered around the giant echoing mansion, from room to room, all the way up to the attic, but he couldn't find Blaine. 

It...upset him. He missed Blaine. And the house just seemed, sort of dead without him. 

After calling for him for hours, Kurt just rolled his eyes and climbed to the top of the staircase. "If you're going to be immature about it," he sighed before pitching himself over the edge.

Blaine caught him and he was...soaking wet?

"Is this..." Kurt picked a string of seaweed out of Blaine's hair. "Sea water?"

Blaine stared at him darkly. "Well I was trying to swim."

"In the ocean?"

"Yes. Before someone decided to jump off the staircase again."

"I'm not the one who ran away like a five year old," Kurt shot back.

Blaine sighed and then they were in his room. Kurt was plopped down on the bed and Blaine was shedding his clothes, the shower already running.

Kurt coughed quietly and averted his eyes (mostly...sort of...okay, not really...) and tucked his feet up under him. "So do you want to explain your little disappearing act earlier?"

Blaine paused before turning and leaning against his dresser, arms folded over his chest. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lose control like that and I know that it probably hurt--"

"It was more awkward than painful," Kurt shrugged. "It probably would've hurt less if you hadn't kept diving in and out."

"I was trying to avoid arteries," Blaine grimaced lightly. "And if my teeth sit too long, they--" He broke off suddenly, looking down. He looked almost...embarrassed.

"They..." Kurt prompted, scooting towards the edge of the bed.

Blaine looked up but wouldn't meet his eyes. "They... secrete this uh... pheromone and well, it sort of, well, that is to say--" Kurt had never seen him so flustered. "It makes you feel...good."

"O...kay?" Kurt said uncertainly, not quite getting what all of the fluster was about. "So it doesn't hurt? It's like a balm, or whatever?"

"Not exactly," Blaine sighed, rubbing at his hair. "Look, there's a reason...vampires who are alone generally find only one person to consistently feed from and it's usually someone they find attractive because...because more often than not, it leads to something more."

"Oh," Kurt nodded. Then his eyes widened and he actually got it. " _Oh_. Okay. So...you're used to drinking from girls so drinking from me would be awkward, right?"

Blaine stared at him. "Kurt, I've only ever consistently drank from men."

Kurt stared back. "So you're--"

"Very very gay."

Kurt's brow furrowed. "But you were going to marry my grandmother."

"Well, she proposed and she knew about my...condition, so I accepted. Plus, I think she suspected that she wasn't really my type because she kept saying that she would be fine if I found some other person. It was supposed to be a marriage of convenience--she gave me the cover I needed, and I got her out of the marriage she was supposed to have. Not to mention, 'til death do us part' was a little premature."

Kurt just nodded, throat dry. "So...wait, why won't you do it then?"

"You're my best friend's great-grandson," Blaine said bluntly. "It's kind of weird."

"So you don't see me in that way," Kurt said with tight smile.

"No," Blaine shook his head. "I  _do_. And that's why it's weird." 

"Ah," Kurt said, face heating. "Right."

"Yeah," Blaine nodded before walking over to the bathroom and getting in the shower.

Kurt walked over to the dresser and took out his pajamas, changing before he really understood everything that Blaine had just said.

Blaine liked him.

Like...liked him liked him.

So he put the top back in the dresser and sat back down on the bed, nervously fiddling his fingers as he waited. 

Blaine came back out, towel around his waist and one in hand as he dried his hair, but he stopped once he saw Kurt sitting on the bed in only his pajama pants. "Kurt?"

"So," Kurt cleared his throat. "I've thought about what you said and after much consideration, I think that um...we...should...try it?"

"What?"

"Uh, you. Me. My neck." He mimed a vampire biting, making his hands into claws. 

Blaine stared at him like he was half-insane, which he very well may be. "You want me to bite your neck."

"Yes."

Blaine sighed, hanging the towel around his neck and pulling both ends. "Kurt--"

"Look, I know what you're going to say, but hear me out," Kurt said, sitting cross-legged. "We're in this extremely odd and weird and kind of messed-up...living situation, I guess, and I feel like that we should at least make the most of it while we're here and..." he looked down. "And I don't like seeing you in pain. And I know you are whenever you're thirsty, no matter how hard you try to hide it."

There was a pause. Blaine walked over to sit next to Kurt on the bed. "I just...I want to make sure that you're comfortable. So that I can be comfortable."

"I'm fine," Kurt insisted, looking over at him. "And you're fine. And we're all fine and dandy and stuff, now can you just please bite my neck because I'm not sure how many more times I can humiliate myself asking."

Blaine licked his lips unconsciously before standing suddenly in front of Kurt and carefully maneuvering his head to the side so he could lean over the side of his neck, his breath ghosting over it. "If it hurts too much," he whispered. "Just tap my neck and I'll stop."

Kurt nodded silently and Blaine leaned over. He pressed a soft kiss to his neck which sent a shiver through Kurt, before leaning over and biting.

Kurt gasped, teeth clenching as Blaine's hands went down to his shoulders and held him still. It hurt more than his arm had and Blaine's teeth burrowed deeper but it honestly wasn't nearly as bad as Kurt had thought and--

Blaine's teeth seemed to twitch and all of the sudden Kurt felt very very hot. He breathed out shakily, his hands coming up to rest against Blaine's sides as he let out a low and raspy moan. 

Blaine's hands were pawing at him suddenly and pushing him down and Kurt collapsed back, fingers dragging up to Blaine's back and pressing down as his legs slid open and everything just felt hot and warm and stifling but oh so good and Blaine was gasping against his neck in between gulps, his hands tracing down the front of Kurt's chest idly before suddenly going down to his pants and yanking them impatiently, accidentally shredding them in the process.

Blaine pulled back suddenly, staring at the mangled strips of fabric in his hand, blood dripping from his lips. "Kurt, I'm sorry--"

"Blaine, it's fine," Kurt mumbled, blinking out of his haze.

"No, I really shouldn't have--" Blaine froze suddenly. He let out a small burp.

Kurt's eyebrows shot up in surprise and he burst into giggles, covering his hands with his face. "Did you just burp?"

"It happens," Blaine said embarrassedly. 

Kurt drew his hands down and smiled at Blaine. "Apparently. And I...I don't mind if we go further, if you aren't opposed."

"That's just the pheromones talking," Blaine sighed. "I'm not going to take advantage of you when you're half giddy off your mind."

"It's not the pheromones," Kurt countered firmly. "You aren't the one who's been having sex dreams for the past couple weeks."

Blaine shot him a look.

Kurt's eyes widened. "Wait, what--"

"Regardless," Blaine said, grimacing as he tossed what remained of Kurt's pajama pants behind his back. "I think we should have a mature adult conversation before going any further. And I think it should be a night when I haven't drained over a gallon of blood from you."

"Okay," Kurt nodded. "My neck's still bleeding."

Blaine blinked. "Oh. Right. Sorry." He leaned down and licked across the two small holes so they'd clot. He hovered over Kurt's face, licking the excess blood off his lips. "I guess...bed...time?"

Kurt nodded and moved to go over to his side of the bed before Blaine held fast to his arm.

"Um...you can stay here if you like."

Kurt smiled and nodded, laying down on the pillow.

Blaine hesitated. "Can I...hold you?"

Kurt blinked in surprise before nodding and Blaine wrapped his arms around him. Kurt rested his head over Blaine's chest, ear over where his heart was.

There wasn't a beat, but Kurt knew it was still there.

***

It was probably sometime around twilight when Kurt woke. Blaine had his arms wrapped loosely around him and was nuzzled against his neck. Kurt slid out gently, looking around for his pajama pants but they were shredded somewhere on the floor. So he just took one of the velvet sheets instead, pulling it with him and wrapping it around himself as he went out into the hall and down the stairs. 

He wandered around, slightly unsteadily and lightheaded, and feeling sort of hazy... He ended up in one of the back rooms on the first floor where there was a grand piano sitting quietly. He stared at it for a long while before going over to sit by it, bunching the velvet sheet all around him as he lifted up the lid.

His mother had taught him piano when he was younger but he'd given it up a couple of years ago. Though he still remembered a few...

Placing his fingers on the keys, he played a low chord, then a rolled higher one. He licked his lips lightly and played them again before starting to sing along.

"Someone to hold you too close..."

_Blaine wrapped his arms tightly around him, breathing in his scent._

"Someone to hurt you too deep..."

_A bloody smile grinned back at him._

Kurt paused, his fingers hovering over the keys before he started to play again. "Someone to sit in your chair--"

_Blaine laughed on top of the counter, the sound filling the room._

"--to ruin your sleep."

_Kurt jolted out of bed at the dark silhouette over him._

Kurt smiled wryly as his fingers fell into the familiar pattern. "Someone too need you too much."

_Blaine cupped Kurt's face, a worried expression on his own._

"Someone to know you too well..."

_Blaine showed Kurt the lobster he'd ordered to the house for dinner, grinning as Kurt jumped around the kitchen, excited._

"Someone to pull you up short--"

_Blaine ripped the knife out of his hand._

"To put you through hell."

_Kurt screamed as Blaine shoved him down so he could heal his wounds._

Kurt winced, feeling the two small pinprick holes in his neck ache at the memory.

"Someone who you have to let in..."

_Kurt gave Blaine a soft nod with a tentative smile._

"Someone who's feelings you spare..."

_Kurt sighed as he walked next to Blaine through the woods, trying to nicely reject his offer of dinner._

"Someone who, like it or not, will want you to share a little--"

_Blaine licked Kurt's fingers free of blood._

"--a lot."

_Blaine groaned as his fangs sunk deep into Kurt's neck._

"Someone to crowd you with love..."

_Blaine stroked Kurt's face gently, an adoring smile on his lips._

"Someone to force you to care..."

_Kurt cupped Blaine's upside down face anxiously._

"Someone make you come through--"

_Kurt answered the door to Blaine in his lobster cardigan._

"Who'll always be there--"

_Blaine smiled at him as he offered his hand and they walked down the steps to the dance floor below._

"As frightened as you--"

_Blaine slammed on his door, begging to be let in._

"Of being alive. Being alive... being alive... being alive."

_Blaine spun Kurt around the dance floor with a smile._

"Somebody hold me too close."

_Blaine's hands gripped around Kurt as they jumped from his window._

"Somebody hurt me too deep."

_Blaine grabbed Kurt's wrists, questioning how he'd gained the scrapes._

"Somebody sit in my chair..."

_Blaine sat in the chair across from him, gesturing to the cognac._

"...and ruin my sleep..."

_Kurt jumped as he saw Blaine watching over him as he slept._

"...and make me aware of being alive. Being alive..."

_Blaine leaned over and kissed Kurt's hand, causing his heart to flutter._

"Somebody need me too much..."

_Kurt leaned against the edge of the tub as Blaine told him he'd always save him._

"Somebody know me too well..."

_Kurt grinned at the cheesecake._

"Somebody pull me up short and put me through hell..."

_Kurt argued with Blaine on their bed (because it was their's now, wasn't it?)._

"And give me support for being alive..."

_Blaine extended his hand, telling Kurt it was cold outside and won't he come in?_

"Make me alive...make me alive...make me confused..."

_Blaine leaned forward and wished Kurt sweet dreams while slipping a gardenia in his pocket._

"Mock me with praise..."

_Blaine smiled at Kurt in amusement._

"Let me be used..."

_Kurt sat in a pile of blood and snow, looking around at the bodies in horror._

"Vary my days..."

_Kurt's eyes fluttered open as night fell._

"But alone..."

_Kurt sat alone on his bed, staring out at the gray landscape._

"Is alone..."

_Kurt curled up in the lighthouse, crying and shivering._

"Not alive..."

_Kurt accepted the dance with a smile._

"Somebody crowd me with love."

_Blaine leaned forward and put his head against Kurt's._

"Somebody force me to care."

_He did._

"Somebody let me come through."

_Please._

"I'll always be there."

_...he would. He will._

"As frightened as you--"

_God, he was._

"To help us survive..."

_And he hoped they would._

"Being alive...being alive...being alive."

He breathed heavily in front of the piano and wiped his eyes. 

***

About an hour later, Blaine appeared next to him on the bench. "I have to go into town tonight."

"Oh," Kurt said quietly, huggin the sheet around him. "You're leaving?"

"Just for an hour or two," Blaine said quietly. He looked over at Kurt hesitantly before leaning over and pressing a soft kiss to his hair. "I'll see you later." And then he was gone.

In his place, on the bench, was a key.

Kurt picked it up, recognizing it as the one that opened all the locks on the house.

Including the ones outside.

Blaine was letting him go.

It took two seconds to make his decision.

He went upstairs and got dressed. But he didn't pack anything.

He was staying.

But he desperately wanted to see the sky again.

***

He made sure he was bundled up warm before going outside to explore the backyard. There was a small greenhouse against the backyard and Kurt peaked inside to see gardenias growing. He smiled as he opened the door for a quick heady whiff before closing it shut. In the back of Anderson Manor was woods mainly, and a large lawn. Kurt walked around it idly, staring up at the sky which was actually clear for once, the stars twinkling down from the heavens.

He breathed the fresh air deep into his lungs and spun around with a soft giggle.

He froze as he heard something, his ears straining. It was soft and high and sweet, almost like...

He frowned and walked into the woods towards it. It was beautiful, filtering through the trees. Someone singing wordlessly. He had to find out who. Who was it who was it who was it--

He was in the meadow suddenly, the sound coming from the well. 

His mind screamed at him to turn around but he was transfixed by the sweet song and his feet kept walking forward, closer and closer and closer...

He stood in front of the well, the big wooden lid with its thick iron lock. The well practically vibrated with the sweet song and well...it's not like she could get out.

He unlatched the lock and pushed the heavy lid off of the well, looking down below.


	10. Chapter 10

The thick wooden lid fell to the icy snow behind the well with a heavy thunk and Kurt set his hands on the freezing stones and leaned over, breath coming out quickly.

The sweet singing abruptly stopped.

It was dark. Everything was dark. He could faintly make out the water below...

Then, slowly, a face tilted up towards the moonlight from the depths to stare at Kurt. 

Kurt blinked in surprise. It was nothing like the face in his dreams. She looked sort of skinny and gaunt, but she was actually quite pretty as she pushed a long dark brown lock of hair behind her ear off her face as she blinked up at Kurt. 

"M-Marley?" Kurt asked, shivering and not just because of the cold.

Marley smiled softly then it stretched into a delighted grin. "Yes!" she said softly, but it carried all the way up to Kurt. "Yes, I am! How do you know me?"

Kurt stared down and took a couple of calming breaths. "We met once. Sort of. Um...you looked at me?"

"Oh yes!" she said delightedly. "The little boy who pushed in the rock! That was the most fun I'd had in decades." She pouted, hugging her arms around herself. "I was sad that you ran though. I hadn't talked to anyone for so long... Then Blaine came and replaced it..." She shuddered.

Kurt nodded, not entirely sure what to really do or why he was still talking to her. But he couldn't think of an appropriate segue between "hey there vampire in the well" and sliding the lid back onto place.

"But what are you doing here, Kurt?" she asked inquisitively. 

"I uh...heard you singing..." he muttered. "How do you know my name?"

"Blaine said it when he was talking to you," she smiled. "Outside of this well. Days ago. Plus, your thoughts whispered it to me in your dreams."

Kurt stared at her, at that eerily too perfect smile that graced her face and decided that it was really really time to go. "Well, I uh...it's getting late and--"

"Wait!" she said desperately, face contrite. "I'm sorry, it's been a while since I've had a proper conversation, so I know I'm out of form, but I just wanted to say...thank you, Kurt."

"For what?" Kurt frowned, bewildered. 

"For pushing the stone in when you were younger," she smiled, lifting her hand from the water to show him the small gray stone. "Because now I can do this."

It was too fast so Kurt didn't see her arm move, but he felt the sharp pain of the rock bashing into his forehead. He took a step back and his foot slid on the ice and he went pitching over the side of the well. He managed to grip his fingers on the thin iron ledge at the top with his left hand and was about to swing his right hand up as well when something grabbed it. He looked down.

Marley had climbed up the side of the well wall somehow and was gripping his hand tightly in her own. Her face was no longer pretty, but gaunt and sunken, her eye wide and blue and watery, dark clumped stringy hair hanging all around her face as she grinned, all of her teeth pointed. 

She gave a sharp yank and Kurt fell, his fingers letting go and a sharp scream leaving his lips as he crashed down into darkness.

The water came up faster than expected and he hit it hard, dazed for a minute before his head came up again. It was shallow enough for him to stand, the water coming up just to his chest and he spit out the dark liquid, wiping his eyes and looking around. 

All he saw was dark stones surrounding him. He looked up and saw the night sky briefly.

"Kurt..." a rasping voice rattled in front of him. 

He looked down and saw Marley emerging from the water, long dark hair flowing everywhere, what looked to be a formerly white dress stained with filth and blood. 

He tried to get away, but something gripped around his thighs tightly and he saw something...slithering?...in the water. A freezing pale arm latched around his back and he was pressed against Marley, her other hand gripping his hair and pulling it back, exposing his neck. The angle he was at afforded him a better view of something slithering up the wall. "What the hell..." he whispered, tears forming in his eyes.

"Do you like them?" Marley giggled, and the thing around Kurt's legs tightened. "Vampires are very adaptive creatures, you know. It turns out, if you stick one in an environment long enough, it starts to adapt to it. 

Kurt stared in horror as he realized the thing around his legs was a.... The tentacle on the wall slid back under the water and snuck up his body, wrapping around his arms and his back so that Marley's other hand was free to frame his head, tipping it towards her.

She smiled and dragged her nose along the line of his jaw. "Oh Kurt Kurt Kurt," she whispered. "You know, I wanted to do this to you great-grandmother? Just rip that bitch's hair out and drain her until she was dry..." She sighed in disappointment. "I guess that you'll have to do." She wrenched his hair back sharply and bit down on his neck.

Kurt screeched, trying to get his hands free as his neck  _burned_  with pain. Marley giggled against his neck and dug her teeth--not just two fangs but her full set of teeth--into his neck and just gnawed.

Kurt's screams echoed through the well, drowning out all other sounds of the water or Marley's small breaths and thirsty licks, or a cracking noise or even...Kurt thought he heard a splash...

Marley pulled back, her face covered in blood as she chuckled. "You smell like gardenias. Oh, Blaine must love you."

"I do."

Suddenly Kurt was out of Marley's grip and in the water. He couldn't feel his legs or arms because of how tightly they'd bee gripped and his neck was throbbing as he slowly sank to the bottom, the water churning around him.

A hand grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him and then he was out of the water. He blinked his eyes open and realized that Blaine had an arm around them and then he jumped and they were racing through the air.

Moonlight hit them as they crashed into the snow. Kurt rolled across it, landing on his back, the stars blurry above him.

Then Blaine was in his view, leaning over him and shaking his face, panicking. "Kurt! Kurt, get up!" 

Kurt blinked, coughing up the bile water onto the snow and sitting up.

"Oh thank god," Blaine sighed, hauling him to his feet. "Kurt, get out of here. Run." 

Shaking his head to clear it, Kurt looked around wildly. The well was behind Blaine, completely smashed to pieces. A hand appeared on top of the rubble.

"Blaine..." Kurt whispered. And Blaine turned as another hand appeared and they scraped across the rubble to haul up a body. A foot appeared next. Then Marley was standing in the ruins of the well.

Blaine pushed Kurt behind him. "Kurt run. I'll find you. Just get the hell out of here and find somewhere safe."

"Blaine--"

Blaine looked back at him sharply, eyes black. "Kurt. Please. Go."

Kurt turned and ran, and suddenly he was eight again, running from the well, tearing through the woods, the only thought in his mind  _run run run run run_ —!

He stumbled through a thorny bush and out of the trees. He was on the beach, the same beach. The only thing around was the old lighthouse. Blaine's words echoed in his head,  _Somewhere safe..._

Kurt wrenched the door open and ran inside, up and up and up the metal staircase to the top, but the giant light and he sat down, hiding. Blaine would be able to find him because he'd feel his heart racing. He'd just have to get rid of Marley and then he'd yell up to Kurt and Kurt would come down and they'd be fine and--

And someone was coming up the stairs.

Kurt curled up, staying hidden, just incase...

A hand appeared and Kurt's heart sunk.

Marley.

She climbed to the top of the stairs and grinned down at him. "Hello Kurt."

"How did you find me?" he whispered. "Where's Blaine?"

"Blaine's indisposed at the moment," she grinned. "It takes a while to reattach all your limbs to your body. Luckily, I had extra help getting them off..." The four tentacles coming out of her back slid across the floor lazily. "Now, let's get to the fun part..." 

One of the tentacles shot out and grabbed his ankle, yanking him forward onto his back and she fell on top of him, teeth against his neck. She smiled and whispered into his ear and his eyes widened before her teeth burrowed into his neck again and he screamed.

***

Minutes later, Kurt was on the wood still, weakly trying to move one of his arms when Blaine came up the stairs, looking down at him in horror.

"Kurt," he breathed, tilting his head up gingerly. "Kurt are you..."

Kurt opened his mouth, trying to form words, eyes glued to the ceiling. Blaine's eyebrows furrowed in confusion before he tilted his head up to look as well.

Marley was stuck to the ceiling by her tentacles, smiling down at them. 

Blaine was on his feet when Marley dropped, but she fell down the staircase past them.

"Trap..." Kurt rasped, coughing weakly. "Blaine...it's...trap..."

There was a low creaking noise of a door closing, and then the unmistakable sound of a latch sliding into place. 

Marley had locked them in the lighthouse. 


	11. Chapter 11

Kurt, it's useless!"

Kurt ignored Blaine and rammed his shoulder into the door again. And again. And again. And--

Blaine was suddenly at his side, pulling him back and then they were up top again. "Stop it," Blaine said sternly, setting him below the window and sitting next to him. "You're going to break your arm."

"Well you could have helped," Kurt said sullenly, massaging his shoulder. 

Blaine sighed, biting into his wrist and holding it over to Kurt. "Here. I'll fix your neck after."

Kurt grimaced at the red wrist before putting his mouth over it and sucking briefly, wrinkling his nose as he pulled back and swallowed. Within seconds he was scrambling over to the stairs, holding onto the top one as he vomited black bile violently onto them, body shaking with the force of it.

Blaine was by his side instantly, hands flying everywhere around his body, panicking and not sure what to do. 

After what seemed like gallons of bile--followed by nearly choking on foam--Kurt pushed back from the staircase, coughing and crying as he wiped his mouth and settled against the wall weakly.

Blaine cupped his face, looking back and forth between his eyes. "What happened to you...?" He leaned over and licked the still gaping wound that Marley had left when she'd drank from him. His face contorted and he spit, wiping his tongue on the back of his sleeve. "Dead man's blood," he said quietly, fingers pressing against the outside of the wound. "It's infected with dead man's blood. And so are you... Oh god, did you  _drink_  it?"

Kurt blinked, trying to remember. "Not on purpose. But she dropped me and I wasn't prepared and I'd lost a lot of blood and the water just came in my mouth and I was trying to cough it out but I couldn't breathe and--"

"Okay, okay," Blaine nodded, licking his lips in concentration. "Kurt, it's fine. You didn't do anything wrong. But...I can't heal you now. It won't work. If I give you blood again, you might die."

"Blaine," Kurt whispered. "I'm stuck with a vampire in a lighthouse that neither of us can escape from and there's no food or water. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to die sooner rather than later."

Blaine just cupped his face. He didn't say anything, but Kurt knew that he'd already knew he was right.

***

An hour passed. 

Kurt was exhausted and slipping in and out of consciousness, leaning against Blaine's shoulder. 

Blaine was just staring across the small area, looking grim.

"Is there really no way out?" Kurt whispered.

Blaine shook his head. "I tried for decades. The only way is to open the door."

"I don't suppose you have a cell phone on you?" Kurt asked and Blaine shook his head.

"There's no reception here anyways," Blaine sighed. "Or wifi. Or civilization. This lighthouse was shut down because no boats even came by. It's like a small blip on the map that no one really goes to. You were the first person since 1914 to come within three hundred feet of this structure..." Blaine gave a humorless chuckle. "And you just opened up the door."

"What was it like?" Kurt questioned. "Afterwards. Going from 1914 to 2003?" 

"Confusing," Blaine murmured. "And awful. I mean...thousands of ships had passed into the cape and I could hear strains of conversation and radio broadcasts, so I knew vaguely of things that were happening in the world, but..." He sighed. "Being a vampire, I always knew that mortal acquaintances of mine would one day die, but when I'd gone into the lighthouse, Charlotte was young and healthy. When I left, she was dead and her great-grandson was staring at me." He laughed quietly to himself. "It's funny. After a year of trying to break out of here, I used to indulge in this fantasy of Charlotte somehow just...knowing where I was and coming to let me out. I guess my fantasy came true, just three generations too late."

"How did you..." Kurt paused, trying to think of a way to phrase it delicately. "Well...it was eighty-nine years, how did you stay sane? I mean, can vampires lose their minds?"

Blaine snorted back a laugh. "Have you  _met_  Marley? Yeah, we can definitely lose it, and she's gotten worse after ninety-eight years. And now she's out..."

Kurt shivered. "What do you think she'll do?"

"Go after Wes in the longrun," Blaine sighed. "I wish I could warn him. Or Mike, he's down in New Haven right now. But she'll probably tear apart the town first. She hasn't fed in a long while...well, besides you..."

Kurt nodded quietly. "But you managed to stay sane."

Blaine smiled grimly. "Well, there were moments I lost it. But..." He broke off, looking up out the window at the sky. "It was the night of my engagement party when I went off to deal with Marley. I thought I'd be back in time but..." He grimaced. "Yeah, you know how that turned out. But before I left, Charlotte tucked a gardenia in my pocket because I had to 'look presentable' later on and...I still had it when I was trapped up here. It died after a couple of days but...the smell...they were her--"

"Favorite flower," Kurt said quietly. "You...you told her 'sweet dreams', didn't you?"

"Every night when I'd bring her home," Blaine nodded. "Why?"

Kurt smiled softly. "My mom used to tell me that when she was little, she'd visit her grandma's house and it'd always smell like gardenias and her grandmother would lean over and tell her 'sweet dreams' before kissing her on the forehead goodnight. Mom used to tell me that too when I was little, and she had this perfume she'd always wear that would smell just like gardenias..."

Blaine smiled in response. "It's...kind of a vampire thing. Each coven, or individual if we decide to go on our own, has their own flower that's kind of like our...insignia. Or stamp, or crest which we can be recognized by other vampires. With Wes and Mike and Tina, we were originally under the jasmine flower but Wes changed it to the white rose after he met Marley. After Tina's death, we broke apart and chose our own flowers. I didn't have one until Charlotte kept slipping gardenias into my pockets...

"But then after a while the smell faded from the wood and it was just the faint scent of hawthorn everywhere. It was terrible and I kept imagining that I'd smell gardenia flowers and that last decade, I suppose I did crack at some point.

"Then the door opened and my throat was burning for a meal and you were right their and I jumped on top of you. But...you smelled like gardenias. Exactly like gardenias, not just the ghost of the scent from my imagination. And it was like everything just became clear and I looked at you and you just stared at me with those big blue eyes that had been exactly Charlotte's and I just..." 

"Yeah," Kurt said quietly in understanding.

"So I took you home. And kind of conned you into letting me in your room. And everything in there smelled like gardenias as well. Then I stayed the night to make sure that you were alright."

"I didn't know that," Kurt murmured.

Blaine shrugged. "And then you were gone within a week. I was finally free to leave the cape as well because there was a bridge. I traveled. Found Wes and Mike again. They'd thought I was dead. I experienced the world that had moved on without me. I always kept tabs on Provincetown though and one day I learned that the Blanc mansion was getting a new member in the form of one orphaned Kurt Hummel, so I returned."

"You came back because of me?" Kurt stared at him.

"Of course," Blaine smiled. "You were the little boy who'd saved me. I had to make sure that you were alright. I...it had been so long. Everything had changed, even the undead. They say we stay the same because we don't age, but really, we're just affected by the sands of time as anyone else. And I didn't...know how to live anymore. Or pretend how to live. And it was like you just popped up and suddenly I had a purpose. Someone to find so I could secure their safety. You were someone I could pretend for..." He gave a sudden laugh. "Sort of ironic that the next time I saw you, you were up in here, looking out over the snow."

"I was hiding," Kurt protested. "And you scared me."

"I seem to do that a lot," Blaine nodded.

"Then you cleared an entire path all the way to your house," Kurt snorted. "You weren't exactly subtle, were you?"

"Yeah well..." Blaine shrugged. "You were a lot cuter than I thought you'd be."

Kurt scoffed. "Flattery will get you nowhere. Actually, it'll get you everywhere. Go on, tell me more about how cute I am."

"Very cute," Blaine rolled his eyes. "Also very prone to attracting the wrong sort of company. And taking a third option when you really really shouldn't."

"What's that supposed to me?" Kurt frowned.

Blaine shot him a look. "You were supposed to either leave forever and go out the front door and take one of my cars and go, or decide to stay and then just stay in the house. You weren't supposed to go into the backyard--to the fringes of the backyard--and get within earshot of Marley and then get tranced into going to the meadow, Kurt."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Then give me written instructions next time or tell me, don't just give me a key."

"It was supposed to be symbolic."

"For what?"

Blaine looked away suddenly, fiddling his fingers. "I...I heard you singing. At the piano. I was watching you."

Kurt froze, but let him continue.

"And I...I've been trying to save you this whole time. I keep trying to save you. But you just kept trying and...it wasn't doing either of us any good. You didn't want to live, and all those times I tried to save you didn't change that. And I thought that maybe if I gave you the key...you could just make the decision for yourself and find something to live for... And you were singing that song and--" He looked back at Kurt, his eyes large and hazel. "And I was hoping that you'd decide to stay."

Kurt leaned over to cup Blaine's cheek and he pressed their foreheads together. "I..." he started shakily. "Everything had been falling apart. Things at school. Then dad died. I had to move out here. I couldn't control anything. I was just pushed along from one place to the next and I just wanted something that I could control--" he sighed, rolling his forehead against Blaine's, leaning against him heavily. "But others still kept trying to do it for me. Marley. Scott. Even you..." He blinked his eyes open, staring at Blaine. "That's why you scare me so much. I don't feel like I have any control when I'm around you. Not just because of what you are but..." He bit his lip. "But because when I'm with you...I don't mind giving up control. And that's why I did decide to stay," he whispered. "I just wanted to see the sky again. I'm sorry for getting us in this mess."

"I'm sorry for not warning you," Blaine murmured back in response, softly stroking the side of Kurt's neck. "And now we're stuck in this predicament. At least this time I have a much more sustainable source of gardenia scent to block out the hawthorn."

Kurt smiled at him sadly. "But I can't last either, Blaine. Sooner or later..."

Blaine wrapped his arms around Kurt, pulling him into his lap and holding him close. "And when that happens, I'll tear a chunk of hawthorn out of the wall and stake myself."

"Blaine--"

"Kurt," Blaine fired back, pulling back to cup his neck. "I was stuck here for eighty-nine years. The only reason I got out was because you just happened to stumble across this place and needed a place to hide and you were eight and didn't question opening it. It took eighty-nine years for that to happen. It probably won't again."

"But it could one day, you could get out--" Kurt protested.

"And what would be let out?" Blaine asked seriously. "Not me. I don't want to think about what I'll become, Kurt. This won't be like last time, I'll literally have lost everything."

"No, you won't!"

Blaine's face crumpled. "Kurt...I'll have lost you. Of course I'll lose everything."

Kurt brought his hands up to Blaine's wrists. "But you can't--"

"I think that was the plan originally," Blaine said with a grim smile. "When the hunters got me in here. I think they thought I'd just try to end it all after a decade or two. That's why they lined the inside with hawthorn. It's their own insignia..."

Kurt's brows furrowed. "But I thought you said that only vampires had them?"

Blaine rolled his eyes. "I think they thought they were being clever or something. Because, you know, when flowers die, they often turn into--"

"Ouch!" Kurt hissed as Blaine's finger pressed into the wound on his neck.

Blaine pulled his hands back instantly, eyes wide. "I'm sorry, I didn't--"

"It's fine," Kurt shook his head, touching it with his finger gingerly. "It's not your fault, it's Marley's and her freakishly large teeth--" He froze, blinking. "Blaine...how far out were you last night?"

"What do you mean?" Blaine frowned.

"When you were swimming or whatever. How far out were you?"

"Oh," Blaine blinked. "I don't know...maybe a couple hundred feet?"

"And yet in just a couple of seconds, you were out of the water, all the way back to your house and in the foyer in time to catch me."

"Adrenaline's kind of like a hook," Blaine shrugged. "It's the most potent and sort of sends us into a frenzy to get back to where ever our humans are. Apparently Tina once crashed through an entire palace to reach Mike in time back when he was still human."

"So what if I jumped down the stairs here?" Kurt asked, peering down them.

Blaine blinked. "I'd catch you. I thought that much was obvious."

"Because you've drank my blood and stuff, right," Kurt nodded. "But so has Marley. So wouldn't she come back here? So I could just jump right now and we'd be free!" He tried to get to his feet, but Blaine held him fast.

"That is...very smart thinking Kurt, but it wouldn't get us free," Blaine shook his head. "It would bring her back, sure, but it won't force her to save you. She'll have to want to open the door to open it. I got to you in time each time, but I saved you because I ultimately wanted to. Marley doesn't."

Kurt nodded, dejected. 

"It's okay," Blaine said quietly. "Nothing can get me through these walls."

Kurt blinked, a memory flitting in the back of his memory. "Blaine...can you break a strip off of the stair railing?"

Blaine looked up in surprise. "Sure, I guess. It's just tin..." He reached over and broke off a two foot long bar from the railing. "But why would you--?"

Kurt took the bar and stood, stumbling briefly from blood loss before focusing and swinging the bar as hard as he could at the window.

"Kurt?" Blaine stood smoothly next to him. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Getting us out of here," Kurt huffed as he swung the bar again. It hit one of the iron strips that crisscrossed across the circular window this time and he frown before jabbing sharply at one of the triangular window that the bars formed, breaking the glass. The lower triangle was about two feet wide and a little over a foot high and Kurt threw the bar to the side before climbing awkwardly through the broken glass, wincing as he cut himself on the cut edges of the frame and stumbled out onto the wrought iron balcony, shaking glass shards out of his hair.

"See?" he grinned, leaning against the ledge of the balcony. "Easy!"

"Kurt, that's because iron doesn't bother you," Blaine sighed, leaning against the crossed bars of the window. "Even if I could climb past these bars, there's no way I could get past the balcony."

"Except I think you can," Kurt said. He stepped up on one of the lower bars of the ledge so that he could sit on top of it.

Blaine stared at him. "Kurt, what are you doing?"

"Marley's not going to come in because she doesn't want to save me," Kurt said, gripping the ledge tightly as his heart hammered. "But maybe...you could get out because you do."

"Kurt, get back inside," Blaine said, panicking as he guessed Kurt's plan. "Get back in here, now!"

"You said so yourself!" Kurt snapped. "You said that you'd save me no matter what, and nothing, not even a rescinded invitation would keep you out!"

"It was a figure of speech!" Blaine yelled. 

"Really?" Kurt snapped. "Did Tina have an invitation to that palace she tore through to get to Mike?"

Blaine stared at him. "I don't know."

"Exactly!" Kurt smiled. "Don't you see? This'll work! You always catch me, and Marley will get here and we can lock her in instead--"

"Not having an invitation is one thing, getting past iron is another!" Blaine said desperately, pressing against the window desperately. "Just come back in, this is suicide!"

"No, it's not!" Kurt said, loosening his grip. "I'm not doing this because I want to die, Blaine. I'm doing this because I want to live!" 

Blaine stared at him.

Kurt licked his lips and went on. "Whenever I'm in trouble, you always save me. And you will now too. I'm not going to die. It'll be okay."

"You don't know that!"

"But I do!" Kurt said, blinking back tears. "Because...you managed to get me out of my house that night the field hockey team attacked me. You thought I was about to die and nothing stopped you from saving my life."

"Because you'd invited me in when you were younger!" Blaine yelled. "That's hardly the same thing--"

"That's not what I meant," Kurt shook his head. "You tore through the front gate of the house to get to me."

Blaine looked at him, confused.

Kurt smiled. "Blaine, the front gates are made of iron."

He let go and tipped back off the balcony.


	12. Chapter 12

It was like everything happened in slow motion. 

Kurt fell off the balcony and the air rushed up around him. He breathed out as he looked up at the window, waiting waiting waiting...

And then he felt doubt. What if Blaine didn't get to him in time? What if this didn't work? Oh god, he'd snap his neck. He should have at least attempted to land on his feet because in case this didn't work he could maybe crawl with broken legs to the lighthouse door and unlatch it so Blaine could get out and FUCK why hadn't he jumped closer to the door and WHY WAS THIS ALL JUST OCCURRING TO HIM NOW?

His world spun and he saw something tearing through the trees and oh right he'd forgotten about Marley well shit this was going to suck if he really did die.

And then he was looking back towards the balcony and there was Blaine, falling towards him, headfirst, arms outstretched and oh god this just might work--

Blaine's arms grabbed around his waist and they pressed against the side of the lighthouse before Blaine kicked off it, just six feet from the ground and then they were flying through the air, Marley running in the opposite direction below them.

They landed in a pine tree and Blaine set Kurt down on one of the sturdier branches. His eyes were black and livid. "Kurt."

"Yes?"

"Never do that again."

"But I told--" Blaine pressed a finger to his lips.

"Never. Do. That. Again. Promise. Me. Now."

Kurt kissed his finger. "I promise."

"I love you," Blaine breathed, cupping his face and leaning in close.

The tree lurched and Kurt was thrown off. He grabbed out with his hand and caught a branch before it slipped out of his grasp and he reached for another, all the while getting the barest glimpses of what was happening--Marley ripped out part of the tree. Blaine was in the air. One of Marley's tentacles grabbed Blaine's leg. They both hit the ground.

Kurt managed to grab a branch with both hands and hung for a second before it snapped under his weight and he fell the extra ten feet to the ground. 

Landing on his side hard, he rolled over as he felt something crack along his side. He looked down at the drops of blood that was suddenly everywhere in the snow, panicking. But it wasn't from him, it was... He leaned closer to look. Berries. 

He glanced down at the snapped branch still in his hand, at the familiar dark green leaves, then looked up at the neighboring tree to the pine, the one that he'd crashed into.

"Hawthorn," he whispered. 

The fight carried on but it was mostly a blur. He saw a random arm and a tentacle at one point but he couldn't really make out anything. Glancing up at the lighthouse, he froze in horror. 

There was a gaping hole in the balcony and window where Blaine had crashed through. Even if they were able to get Marley inside, she'd be able to escape within seconds.

Which meant they desperately needed a Plan B.

There was a crack and a yell and Kurt looked back towards the fight. Blaine lost an arm. Marley had lost three of her four tentacles. The remaining snuck up behind him and he was suddenly grabbed around the waist before hurled into the ocean.

In a blink Marley was right in front of him, eyes wide and grin feral. "Hello, Kurt," she purred. "Your grandmother says hi, by the way." 

"You..." Kurt breathed out. "You..."

"She was old and bitter, but well worth it for that look on your face," she giggled.

Kurt blinked and things became suddenly clear. He put on a tortured expression and clutched his neck, pleading, "Please don't drink from me again! Please, I couldn't bear it!"

Marley laughed and grabbed his wrist, wrenching it away from his neck and sinking her teeth into his wound, chomping down. "You know," she said around his neck as she viciously tore through tendons in his neck, doing more damage than needed. "You're the last of Charlotte's heirs. They're all dead now, along with her name. Along with her memory. And let me tell you Kurt..." She took another long and greedy gulp. "Revenge has never tasted so sweet."

"Really?" Kurt rasped out. "Dead man's blood is sweet to you?"

Marley froze against him before pulling back sharply, eyes wide. She doubled over suddenly, black bile shooting from her mouth.

"I figured you wouldn't smell it," Kurt murmured blearily. "You've been around it for nearly a century so you wouldn't notice it at first." He leaned over and picked up the hawthorn branch. "But just incase you've built up some sort of fucking immunity..." He raised the branch over his head and drove it through Marley's keeled over back. He ripped it out and did it again, the second time managing to sever the tentacle, then again, then again, then a last time and he left it there as she lay facedown in the snow, black liquids spewing everywhere.

Kurt stumbled away, legs shaky and neck numb with pain. He tipped backwards and Blaine caught up.

"Kurt? Kurt, what did you do?"

"See?" Kurt slurred with a smile. "Told you you'd always catch me."

"Kurt, why did you do that? You know I can't heal you!" Blaine said desperately, trying to hold Kurt so that he wasn't hurting him, but they were sort of beyond that point.  

"Wanted..." Kurt mumbled. "Wanted...to stop her...and...and..."

"And?"

"Want...to...live..."

And then everything went black.

***

There were flashs.

Light.

Sound.

...gardenias?

Pain.

Lots of talking.

Loud noise.

Silence.

Singing?

"You brought me to light..."

Was someone sad?

"No regrets, just love."

Blaine?

"We can dance until we die... you and I will be young forever..."

And then darkness again.

***

He awoke to white.

Kurt blinked and stared at the white ceiling. Then over at the white nightstand. Then down at his white bed and white blankets and white outfit. White machines monitoring his heart. 

A hospital. He was in a hospital. 

He looked over at his bedside table. Gardenias. A bowl full of them. He felt a smile stretch his lips. 

There was movement in the room and he looked over eagerly.

It wasn't Blaine. It was Edmond, and he looked like he'd aged twenty years. "Mr. Hummel," he breathed, standing and walking over to Kurt's bedside. "You're awake."  

"Edmond," Kurt murmured, licking his dry lips. "What..."

"I have regrettable news about Mrs. Weston," Edmond said quietly. "I found her dead last night. The doctors say that it was probably her condition..."

Kurt nodded, blinking back tears. There'd never been great love between him and his grandmother, but he hadn't wanted her dead and he especially hadn't wanted Marley to kill her. 

"Which makes you the sole inheritor of Weston Manor and all acquired estates," Edmond continued. "There will be a will reading and everything. Plus you'll need to find a legal guardian over eighteen."

"Okay," Kurt nodded softly as the nurse walked in. "I think I already know who that will be."

"Mr. Hummel!" she smiled. "Good to see you pull through!"

He smiled painfully as she looked over his machinery. "Um...I had a friend here? He brought me here..."

"Mr. Anderson?" she asked, and Kurt nodded. "Yes, he was here earlier. Said you got into a swimming accident? And were mauled by a rabid octopus?"

Kurt looked down at the large sucker marks on his arms and what he could see of his chest. "That's one way of putting it."

"We were all very glad to see you pull through though, Mr. Hummel," the nurse went on with a smile. "There were about a dozen deaths last night and we couldn't save any of them. We were glad to be able to save you. And Mr. Anderson was extremely relieved as well. He kept worrying that he'd have to make contingency plans."

Contingency plans. Kurt stared down at his hands. If he hadn't made it, Blaine would've tried to turn him. He cleared this throat. "Um...what happened to him? Do you know if he went home?"

The nurse shrugged. "I think so. He said something like you didn't need him anymore so he'd just go. He left a little before midday."

Kurt froze, looking up at her. "Midday?"

"Yeah," the nurse nodded. "Left your window open too even though I told him not to open it. The room was half-filled with smoke before I could close it."

"Smoke?" Kurt asked, heart racing.

The nurse rolled her eyes. "It was probably just some of the high school boys pulling a prank again. It looks they dropped something burning off the roof for kicks and it fell into the hawthorn tree outside of you window and burned the top halves of the branches."

Kurt shook in his bed, blinking back tears.

"Oh!" The nurse said, digging around in the bag she brought. "That reminds me. Next time you see Mr. Anderson, would you give this to him? He was wearing it earlier and we found it under the tree. He probably forgot it on your windowsill and it just fell down..."

Kurt took the item of clothing from her, finally feeling the tears overflow at the sight of the slightly burnt around the edges, but otherwise still intact and completely utterly perfect lobster cardigan.

He pressed it to his chest as the sobs overtook him.

***

He was in the hospital for three days but it felt like an eternity. He had a will read to him. As well as a reassigning of property that may as well have been a will.

His grandmother's was simple. Cut and dry. He owned Weston Manor and the grounds and all the contents it possessed. 

Blaine's documents were a bit more...messy. Well, he'd left a note for Kurt. In it, stating that he wanted to give Kurt everything to insure that he could lead the most capable life that he was able, the world at his fingertips. That he no longer needed his help, but could thrive on his own.

At the very end, it read, "Sweet dreams, Kurt. Even if I won't be in them anymore."

Kurt received Anderson Manor, all of its contents, and the surrounding grounds.

He didn't want any of it.

Edmond was a saint and stayed with him most of the time, claiming that he was the last remainder of the Weston name and he had to at least stay for that. At one point, his niece Rachel, who lived further down the cape, came by to offer vegan banana walnut bread which Kurt had accepted with a forced smile.

It was the day that he checked out that Edmond broached the subject. 

"Mr. Hummel...by the end of this week, you're going to need to choose a legal guardian to take care of you," he said gently.

Kurt nodded softly. He was wearing Blaine's cardigan, like he had been all week.

"And...I know this is a troubling time for you, but I had spoken with you grandmother about what would happen if she'd die before you turned eighteen, and no legal papers were drawn up, but she did say that Weston Manor would be best under my care since I've ran it these past two decades and--"

"Sure. Fine," Kurt said hoarsely. "Draw up the legal papers or whatever. In fact, you can have it all if you want."

"No, Mr. Hummel," Edmond said hurriedly. "That's your inheritance--"

"And I don't want it," Kurt whispered, sniffling. "Just have the papers drawn up."

***

Rachel came later when Edmond returned and she prattled on and on about how great it was that they were going to be friends and basically cousins now and Kurt just nodded and didn't really pay attention as he looked over the papers and picked up the heavy pen to sign everything over to Edmond Berry.

He winced as he accidentally moved his neck the wrong way and felt part of the wound open again. "Shit," he muttered, pressing his fingers against the gauze still there and a couple drops of blood fell onto the documents. 

Edmond called a nurse in and she changed his gauze as Kurt looked down at the blood. It reminded him of the blood he'd seen when he'd fallen from the tree. He frowned. No, that hadn't been blood, those had been berries--

_"That's why they lined the inside with hawthorn. It's their own insignia..."_

_"But I thought you said that only vampires had them?"_

_"I think they thought they were being clever or something. Because, you know, when flowers die, they often turn into--"_

Kurt stared at the blood. 

Fruit. Flowers turned into fruit when they died. And hawthorn flowers turned into hawthorn--

"Berries," Kurt whispered as he looked back up at Edmond and Rachel.

The Berry's were the family of hunters.

And he was about to sign Blaine's entire estate over to them.

"Get out," he said quietly.

Edmond looked up at him in surprise. "Kurt?"

"Get. Out," he repeated, staring up at him. "You're fired. And it's Mr. Hummel to you."

Rachel stood also. "Kurt, what's wrong?"

"No matter how hard you or your family tries," Kurt said slowly and clearly. "You're never going to get you hands on the Weston or Anderson estates so stop trying." His eyes shot to Rachel. "I know that your great-grandfather tried when he attempted to marry my great-grandmother. It didn't work then and it most certainly won't work now." He tore up the adoption papers. "And there's no way in hell that I'm letting you get Blaine's house."

Edmond's face turned dark. "I've lived in that house for twenty years."

"Hoping that my grandmother would make you an inheritor?" Kurt snapped. "Or was there another reason? My mother told me that you started working there when she was a junior in high school. Hoping to make up for you grandfather's failings and just marry my mother instead?"

Edmond flinched and Kurt gave him a humorless smile.

"Get out of my room before I call the nurse back."

Edmond stood swiftly and grabbed his briefcase. "Come, Rachel." Rachel followed him out, shooting Kurt a disdainful look as the door slammed shut.

Kurt breathed out slowly as he leaned against his bed, clutching the sleeves of his cardigan tightly.

***

Weston Manor felt cold and empty. He stood in the doorway of the silent house later that night and sighed, the sound swallowed in the stillness around him. 

Home sweet home.

He walked through the dark empty halls up to his room, feeling the familiar pangs of grief strike him again and the walk seemed to take eight years, but finally he was in his bedroom again. He fell into bed immediately, eyes still watery from earlier. His bed smelled like gardenias. 

_"Sweet dreams, Kurt. Even if I won't be in them anymore."_

"You idiot," Kurt cried quietly into his pillow, burrowing his hands underneath it. "Of course you will be."

He paused as his fingers hit something underneath his pillow and he pulled out an envelope. Leaning over, he flicked on his lamp and saw his name written in cursive on the front. He tore it open and sat on his bed, reading it.

_Dearest Kurt,_

_I felt that I should leave something more substantial than that reassigning of land. I do hope you like the manor though, despite some of the tumultuous times that we spent there._

_(Feel free to give the land with the well away. Or, better yet, burn it to the ground)_

_I heard about your grandmother and I'm so very sorry. I know that losing two won't sit very well with you, but I know that you're a fighter and I know that you desperately want to live._

_Hang on to that, Kurt. Hang on to that feeling because you're going to need it. You're going to face things in this life that will terrify and shock you, but just hold on to that feeling and you should be fine._

_I burned Marley, don't worry. She's gone for good._

_If you need any help, Mike will be of assistance. He's a good friend._

_And I'm so so incredibly sorry, Kurt. I honestly didn't know that I meant this much to you, considering that if you're at this point in the letter, you haven't look up yet to see the amazingly creepy and incredibly smitten vampire hanging from your window ledge and staring in at you as you're (probably) crying._

Kurt's head snapped up and he cried out, falling off his bed.

Blaine was staring at him from just outside his window, a half-sheepish half-guilty smile on his face.

Kurt lurched over to the window and slammed it up. "You scared me half to death!" he snapped. It was supposed to come out as admonishing, but it carried a sob.

"I'm sorry, I keep doing that," Blaine said, honestly regretful. "And I'm sorry for the whole death thing. The hunters were in town and--"

"The Berry's, I know," Kurt sighed.

"So I just threw Marley's burning corpse into the tree and hid under your hospital bed for a while."

"Blaine."

"Yes?"

"Never do that again."

Blaine suppressed a smirk. "But I told--" Kurt put a finger against his lips.

"Never. Do. That. Again. Promise. Me. Now."

Blaine smiled and kissed his finger. "I promise."

"I hate you."

Blaine blinked at him. "Well, fuck."

"And I love you."

Blaine face split into a smile. "That's better."

Kurt rolled his eyes as he sniffled. "What are you still doing out there?"

"Waiting for invitation from the new owner of Weston Manor," Blaine shrugged awkwardly, considering he was hanging from one arm.

"You had an invitation into this room nine years ago," Kurt rolled his eyes.

"But that was from a half-delirious eight-year-old," Blaine said firmly. "I'd rather have an updated version. That is," he added sheepishly. "If you'll have me."

Kurt wiped his eyes and smiled. "It's cold outside," he said quietly before holding out his hand in invitation. "Won't you come in?"

.

The end.


End file.
